About A Third Of Republicans Believe Votes Won’t Be Counted Correctly In 2024

About a third of GOP voters told pollsters that they have a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that votes in the Republican primary elections and caucuses will be counted correctly. Around three in 10 Republicans have a “moderate” level of confidence, while 32 percent said they have either “only a little” confidence in elections or “none at all.”

The AP poll found that 72 percent of Democrat voters have high confidence their party will count votes accurately in its primary contests, while they are more likely than Republicans to have a high level of confidence in the Republican Party’s vote count being accurate.

Meanwhile, about one-quarter of Republicans say they have at least “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the 2024 presidential election will be counted accurately, significantly lower than Democrats. Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults overall—or 46 percent—believe the same, which is in line with an AP-NORC poll conducted in June.

The AP-NORC poll also found a widespread lack of trust in both major political parties among U.S. adults overall. Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults, or 46 percent, told pollsters that they are pessimistic about the means by which the country’s leaders are selected.

Only 3 in 10 Democrats say they are confident the Democratic party’s process will result in a candidate whose views represent most Americans. About one-quarter of Democrats believe the process will produce a candidate whose views represent their own.

Similarly, about 3 in 10 Republicans say the GOP process will produce a candidate who represents a majority of Americans. About one-third of Republicans expect they’ll get a nominee whose views represent their own.

“Nothing will be fair because the last election was rigged,” Julie Duggan, a Chicago resident who backs former President Donald Trump, told AP. “I don’t trust any of them at this point.”

Nearly all Democrat voters, or 93 percent, said President Biden won the election fairly, while about 21 percent of Republican voters believe he won it fair and square. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans, according to that poll, said he won the race “due to voter fraud.” Meanwhile, 58 percent of independent voters said the president won without any fraud.

In August 2023, a CNN poll found that among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, about 69 percent believe that the 2020 election wasn’t legitimate, or an uptick from 63 percent from a CNN survey that was conducted earlier in the year.

The AP-NORC poll surveyed 1,074 adults and was conducted between Nov. 30 and Dec. 4, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based system. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Earlier this month, according to a report, about 20 percent of 2020 voters claimed that they took advantage of election laws that were rescinded or loosened due to the COVID-19 pandemic to commit voter fraud. That included filling out ballots for other people, it found.

“For the past three years, Americans have repeatedly been told that the 2020 election was the most secure in history. But if this poll’s findings are reflective of reality, the exact opposite is true. This conclusion isn’t based on conspiracy theories or suspect evidence, but rather from the responses made directly by the voters themselves,” Justin Haskins, director of the Heartland Institute’s Socialism Research Center, said in a statement.

The publication of that report drew a response from President Trump, who called on Republican officials to take action.

“This is the biggest story of the year, and Republicans must do something about it,” the former president wrote in mid-December on his social media platform, Truth Social. He said that if nothing is done, the issue will cast a shadow over the November 2024 election.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.