A new national survey released Monday by Rasmussen Reports shows 59 percent of likely voters trust electronic voting systems now in use in the U.S., while 38 percent do not trust these systems, including 11 percent who “don’t trust them at all.”
The survey of 982 likely voters was conducted on May 5-7 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence, the veteran polling agency said.
According to Rasmussen, 70 percent of survey respondents are concerned about a case which arose last year when “it was reported that a Venezuelan engineer whistleblower had provided sworn testimony in federal court that they had previously successfully accessed American electronic election systems to interfere with election results without detection.”
This new poll revealed that 84 percent of voters “believe it is important to prevent election cheating in the upcoming November midterms, including 67% who consider it Very Important. Only 12% don’t think it’s important to prevent cheating in the midterm elections.”
According to Rasmussen, “Among those who say it’s Very Important to prevent election cheating in November, 43% don’t put much trust in electronic voting systems, and 62% are Very Concerned about reports of the Venezuelan engineer’s testimony about manipulating voting machines.”
Yet another revealing poll result was how Democrats, Republicans and Independents seem to disagree on electronic voting machines.
“While 51% of Democrats place a lot of trust in electronic voting systems,” Rasmussen discovered, “that level of trust is shared by only 16% of Republicans and 26% of voters not affiliated with either major party.”
However, majorities of every political category—”79% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats and 58% of unaffiliated voters—consider it Very Important to prevent election cheating in the November midterms.”
Meanwhile, Rasmussen revealed that 85 percent of Republicans, 75 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of Independent voters “are at least somewhat concerned about reports that a Venezuelan whistleblower testified about accessing electronic voting systems to interfere with U.S. election results.”
The November midterms are going to be decisive, and there is considerable attention to voting integrity in the wake of court rulings in Virginia and Louisiana about gerrymandering and redistricting. This could be one of the most closely watched, and contested, midterm elections in recent history.
