Do Americans trust poll workers to oversee a fair election? What new poll found

Many Americans lack trust in election workers and believe they may try to manipulate the presidential election, according to new polling.

In the latest YouGov survey, 39% of respondents said it is somewhat or very likely that “poll workers will attempt to tamper with the election in November.” A larger share, 42%, said this is not at all or not very likely, and 20% said they were not sure.

The results were skewed by partisan affiliation, with most Republicans, 55%, saying they believed tampering was likely, and 28% of Democrats and 34% of independents saying the same.

Conducted between Sept. 5-8, the poll sampled 1,127 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The poll also asked respondents if they believed a poll worker attempting to tamper with the election would be successful.

A plurality, 36%, said they were unsure, while 27% said they believed the attempt would be successful and 21% said they believed it would fail.

Thirty-nine percent of Republicans said they thought a poll worker’s attempt would be successful, while 15% of Democrats said the same.

Additionally, respondents were asked how much trust they have in poll workers in the U.S. to oversee a fair election.

A majority, 60%, said they trusted poll workers a great deal or a moderate amount. Meanwhile, 28% said they trusted them a little or not at all.

When respondents were asked the same question about poll workers in their own communities, the answers were slightly different.

A larger majority, 68%, said they trusted their local poll workers a great deal or a moderate amount to oversee a fair election, while 19% said they trusted them a little or not at all.

The poll comes as former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has repeatedly cast doubt on the integrity of the election process — both in 2020 and in 2024.

However, government officials have said the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” and researchers who looked into it found no evidence of systemic fraud.

Regarding the 2024 election, Jen Easterly, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, recently told NPR, ”I can say with confidence based on all the work that we’ve done together since 2016, that election infrastructure has never been more secure.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2024 at 12:38 PM with the headline "Do Americans trust poll workers to oversee a fair election? What new poll found."