How Much Will Voters Trust Election Results On Election Day?

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Publish Date:
November 4, 2016
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Texas Monthly
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Summary

After months of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s accusations that polls, media outlets, and even Saturday Night Live skits are part of a conspiracy to steal the election from him, his fear of election rigging seems to be spreading to voters and lawmakers. In Texas, the level of concern about the integrity of the election has reignited talks of securing paper backups for voting machines, which would provide receipts for voters to make sure their electronic vote was recorded accurately. The idea for paper backups isn’t new, but it’s become more relevant as suspicious voters question everything from voting machines to other voters.

As the Texas Tribune reports, several Texas lawmakers have proposed paper backups over the past few years, including Senator Lois Kolkhorst, who stated she may re-introduce her bill in the upcoming legislative session. Whether there will actually be action taken to secure the printers needed—at a cost of $40 million to $50 million based on estimations made in 2007—remains to be seen. But that reasonable push to ensure voting integrity serves as a beacon of hope in Texas, a state with a history of enacting voting laws that restrict access.

According to a survey conducted in early October by Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford Law School, and Jon Cohen, chief research officer for SurveyMonkey, some Americans have lost trust in the legitimacy of this election. In a op-ed for the Washington Post, Persily and Cohen explain their findings, writing:

When asked in this SurveyMonkey Election Tracking poll if they would accept the result should their candidate lose in November, just 31 percent say they definitely would see the outcome as legitimate. Nearly as many (28 percent) say it is either “unlikely” that they would accept the result or that they definitely would not. Again, Trump’s supporters were more apt to say they would question the legitimacy of a Clinton victory than vice versa, but sizable shares on both sides, representing tens of millions of Americans, indicate they would not accept the legitimacy of the next president of the United States.

While Persily and Cohen’s op-ed don’t mention the role Trump and other politicians play in this distrust, Hasen believes Trump’s comments have a specific goal. “I think it is intended to delegitimize Democratic victories and to convince the Republican base that when Democrats win elections, they’re stealing them,” Hasen says.

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