Public confidence in the mechanics of U.S. elections is sharply divided along partisan lines, according to a six-day Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday. The survey indicates that years of assertions casting doubt on electoral integrity have resonated broadly among Republicans, leaving many Americans primed to accept claims of wrongdoing as they head into the November midterm contests.
The poll results underscore deep differences in perceptions about fraud. Some 46% of respondents agreed with the statement that large numbers of fraudulent ballots are cast by non-citizens in U.S. elections. That view was embraced by 82% of Republicans, compared with 18% of Democrats and 38% of independents.
Concern over mail-in and absentee ballot fraud also split sharply by party. Overall, 53% of respondents reported worry about fraudulent mail-in or absentee ballots, while 43% said they were not worried. Within the partisan breakdown, 83% of Republicans expressed concern about mail-in ballots, versus 33% of Democrats.
Taken together, those answers reflect the strong uptake among Republican voters of messaging that questions both the scale of non-citizen voting and the reliability of mail-in ballots, despite repeated audits and academic research that have found voter fraud in these areas to be exceedingly rare. The poll’s findings suggest the electorate may be more receptive to allegations of wrongdoing in November, when control of the House and Senate will be contested amid voter unease on foreign policy and inflation.
Expert observation
Kelly Rader, research director at States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on protecting free and fair elections, said the survey highlights the durability of false claims advanced by former President Donald Trump and his allies. Rader said people are particularly likely to accept those claims when they come from trusted leaders, which in turn creates vulnerability to electoral misinformation.
"People are responding to them, particularly Republicans, because they’re listening to the leaders that they trust, and it’s creating this vulnerability in people to believe lies about the election," Rader said. "It’s never fun to see these big partisan splits in beliefs like on non-citizen voting. But luckily, the system is built to withstand this, and states are ready for this year’s midterms."
Support for voter identification and federal oversight
The online poll of 4,557 U.S. adults, which carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, found substantial bipartisan backing for requiring voters to show official identification: 77% of respondents overall favored such a requirement, including 63% of Democrats and 95% of Republicans.
While the poll indicates broad sympathy for voter ID rules, it did not explore support for stricter measures being debated in Congress. One such measure, the SAVE Act, would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register or update registration for federal elections. The bill has passed the House but faces an uphill climb in the Senate amid Democratic concerns it could disenfranchise eligible voters. The poll notes that 23 mostly Republican-led states have adopted provisions similar to those in the bill.
On the question of whether the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump - a claim for which there is no evidence - the poll found 63% of Republicans believe that assertion. That share has remained largely unchanged in recent years, according to the survey data. By contrast, just 9% of Democrats and 21% of independents said they believed Trump lost in 2020 due to wrongdoing.
Confidence that individual ballots will be counted
Despite the partisan divisions over broader claims of fraud, the poll found a bipartisan majority of Americans retain confidence that their own ballots will be counted. Seventy-nine percent of Democrats and 71% of Republicans said they were generally confident their votes would be tallied as intended. Rader pointed to this as a constructive finding and noted that her organization’s research links such confidence closely to voter turnout.
The survey also probed support for a more visible federal presence at polling places. Only 28% of Americans overall backed deploying troops to polling locations, and Republicans were split on that idea with 45% in favor and 54% opposed. Support was stronger for federal law enforcement presence: 62% of Republicans endorsed federal law enforcement at polls, compared with 23% of Democrats and 36% of independents.
The poll’s timing follows public comments by Trump in which he said he regretted not deploying the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election and suggested that Republicans "ought to nationalize the voting" during an appearance on former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s podcast. Those remarks were cited in the context of the survey’s findings on public appetite for federal intervention at polling sites.
Implications for the midterms
Survey respondents’ acceptance of unproven claims about election fraud, particularly among Republican voters, signals a heightened risk that misinformation could take root in the run-up to the midterms. The poll data shows strong differences by party in perceptions of non-citizen voting and the reliability of mail-in ballots, robust cross-party support for voter ID, and uneven support for federal involvement at the polls.
While the poll does not offer predictive claims about election outcomes, it does document a political environment in which large segments of the electorate are receptive to allegations of misconduct in elections - a dynamic that election administrators and policymakers will monitor closely as November approaches.