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Poll: Voters Have Concerns Over Election Security

Photo ID laws and voter fraud are major issues ahead of Nov. 8

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, center, has made claims about the election being "rigged" and many voters have similar concerns. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, center, has made claims about the election being "rigged" and many voters have similar concerns. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

More than two out of every three U.S. citizens in a recent poll say they are very or somewhat concerned about the security of the nation’s electoral system.

The Economist/YouGov poll was conducted amid Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s recent claims that the November election is “rigged.”

Seventy-two percent of respondents said they were very or somewhat concerned about the security of the electoral system while just 21 percent were either not very concerned or not concerned at all. 

The survey found that two out of five respondents (42 percent) said they believed that Russia was attempting to influence the U.S. presidential election. 

Last week, the White House officially accused Russia of meddling in U.S. elections. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied any hand in the recent cyberattacks on Democratic groups and voter registration systems. 

[White House: ‘Significant Resources’ to Protect Election Systems]

Forty-two percent of respondents indicated that they have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence that the vote count in November will be accurate compared to 23 percent who had only a little confidence or none at all. A third were very concerned about U.S. citizens being denied their right to vote due to voter identification laws. 

Recent voter ID laws have been controversial. In August, the Supreme Court refused to allow a North Carolina photo ID law to be enforced during this fall’s elections. A federal court ruling in Texas forced the state to change its law so that citizens can vote without a required photo ID as long as they sign an affidavit stating why they couldn’t get one. 

Concerns over voter fraud split along party line. Sixty-four percent of Republicans said they were very concerned about fraudulent votes being cast, compared to 26 percent of Democrats. 

And 31 percent of Democrats said they were not concerned at all about fraudulent votes, as opposed to only 5 percent of Republicans.

The poll surveyed 1,300 U.S. citizens aged 18 and over in web-based interviews from Oct. 15-18. The margin of error was 3.9 percentage points.

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