President Trump and his allies are questioning the security of the ballots. Democrats warn of unconstitutional federal intervention. Experts and others are raising concerns about partisan redistricting and federal immigration agents intimidating people at the polls.
Meanwhile, voter confidence in the upcoming midterm elections has declined sharply and across parties, according to new research from UC San Diego's Center for Transparent and Trustworthy Elections.
Of 11,406 eligible voters surveyed between mid-December and mid-January, only 60% said they were confident that midterm votes would be counted fairly, down from 77% who were confident the votes would be counted shortly after the 2024 presidential election.
Changes in voter confidence are common after elections, with voters in winning parties generally expressing more confidence and voters in losing parties expressing less, said Thad Kousser, one of the center's co-directors. However, the new survey found overall double-digit declines in trust over the past year, he said.
These drops in confidence and fears about voter intimidation are alarming, voting experts say, and raise serious questions about voter turnout in a crucial midterm election that could radically reshape American politics.
While 82% of Republicans expressed at least some confidence in the vote count after Trump's 2024 victory, only 65% said they felt that way in the latest poll. Among Democrats, trust fell from 77% to 64%, and among independents from 73% to 57%, according to the survey.
“Everyone — Democrats, Republicans and independents alike — has become less confident in elections over the last year,” Kousser said, calling it a “parallel movement in this polarized era.”
Of course, what's causing those declines differs greatly by party, said Kousser co-chair Lauren Prather, with distrust in mail-in ballots and noncitizen voting cited by half of Republicans, and concerns that eligible voters won't be able to cast their ballots due to fear or intimidation cited by nearly a quarter of Democrats.
Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly alleged that mail-in voting contributes to widespread fraud and that noncitizen voting is a major problem in U.S. elections, even though neither of these claims are supported by evidence.
Dean C. Logan, Recorder-Recorder/County Clerk, oversees voter registration, maintains voter files, administers federal, state, local and special elections, and verifies initiatives, referendums and recall petitions.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
Many Democratic leaders and voting experts have expressed concerns about the disenfranchisement and intimidation of eligible voters, in part due to Republican efforts to impose stricter voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements, and Trump suggesting his party should “take over” elections across the country.
Others in Trump's orbit have suggested that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents be deployed to polling stations, and the FBI recently raided and seized ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, long a target of Trump's baseless claims of 2020 election fraud.
Prather said research has long shown that “elite signals” (or messages from political leaders) are important in shaping public perception of the security and integrity of elections, so it is not surprising that voters echo the concerns raised by Trump and other party elites.
But the survey also identified more bipartisan concerns, he said.
Voters of all backgrounds (including 51% of Democrats, 48% of independents and 34% of Republicans) said they do not trust that congressional districts are drawn to fairly reflect what voters want. They primarily blamed the opposing party for the problem, but nearly a quarter of Democrats and Republicans also expressed dissatisfaction with their own party leaders, the survey found.
Several states have undertaken unprecedented redistricting in the middle of the decade to gain more congressional seats for their party, with Republicans taking advantage in states like Texas and Democrats in states like California.
Voters of all backgrounds (including 44% of Democrats, 34% of independents and 30% of Republicans) also said they believe ICE agents are likely to be present at polling places in their area, although not everyone agreed on the implications.
Half of Democrats said such a presence would make them feel less confident that votes in their area would be counted accurately, compared with less than 14% who said it would make them more confident. Among Republicans, 48% said it would give them more confidence, and about 8% less confidence. Among independents, 19% said they were more confident and 32% less.
Perceptions of ICE at polling places also varied by race: 42% of Asian American voters, 38% of Hispanic voters, 29% of white voters, and 28% of Black voters said it would make them feel less safe, while 18% of Asian American voters, 24% of Hispanic voters, 27% of white voters, and 21% of Black voters said it would. It would make them feel safer.
Among Black and Hispanic voters, 46% said they expected to face intimidation while voting, compared with 35% of Asian American voters and just 10% of white voters. Meanwhile, 31% of Hispanic and Asian American voters, 21% of Black voters and 8% of white voters said they are specifically concerned about being questioned by ICE agents at the polls.
A man lines up to vote at Compton College in November.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Kousser said the lack of voter confidence this cycle reflects a notable moment in American politics, when political rhetoric has caused widespread distrust not only in the outcome of the election, but in the basic structure and fairness of how votes are collected and counted, even though those structures have been tried and tested.
“We are in this moment where there are people on both sides who are wondering what the objective conditions of the elections will be – whether people will be able to freely go to the polls, what the vote counting mechanisms will be – and that is what characterizes the left, the right and the center in American politics today,” he said.
Prather said research in other countries has shown that distrust in elections over time can cause voters to stop voting, particularly if they think their vote will not be counted fairly. He does not believe the United States has reached that point, as the high turnout in the last election has shown, but it is a longer-term risk.
What could have a more immediate effect are ICE deployments, “especially among groups that have concerns about what it might mean for them to go if they expect ICE or federal agents to be there,” Prather said.
Election experts said concerned voters should take steps to ensure their votes are counted, including checking that they are registered and making a plan to vote early, by mail or with family and friends if they are concerned about intimidation.
What voters should not do if they are concerned about the integrity of the election is decide not to vote, they said.
“The first thing on my list is and always will be: vote,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York Law University. “That sounds maybe trite or simplistic, but the only way we can maintain our democracy is if people continue to participate and trust in it and put their faith in it.”
Voter registrar staff members process ballots at the Orange County Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana in November.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“Now is the time to step up and figure out how to strengthen our protections for fair elections, and not give in to the chaos and believe that it is somehow overwhelming,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Protecting Democracy Project at UCLA Law.
“I don't want people to feel like nothing is working, that everything is overwhelming, and that they're just paralyzed by all the news of these attacks, these threats,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “There are a wide variety of people who are working to ensure that this election goes as smoothly as possible and that if something comes up, we are ready to respond.”
Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant in California, said the erosion of confidence in U.S. elections was “a deliberate strategy” pushed by Trump for years to explain away legitimate election losses that embarrassed him, and facilitated by Republicans in Congress who were unwilling to fact-check Trump's lies to defend American election integrity.
However, Democrats have compounded the problem and become “the monster they are fighting” by gerrymandering blue states through redistricting measures like California's Proposition 50, which have further eroded American confidence in elections, Madrid said.
Madrid said he nevertheless expects high turnout in the midterm elections, because many voters have “the feeling that the crisis is existential for the future, that literally everything is at stake,” but that the loss of trust is a serious problem.
“Without that trust, a form of government like democracy – at least the American form of democracy – doesn't work,” he said.
Trump, who in a post on Friday called Democrats “horrible, fake CHEATS” for opposing voter ID laws that most Americans support, has long called on his supporters to turn out to vote in massive numbers to give him the largest margin of victory possible, as a buffer against any electoral cheating against him. One of his 2024 campaign slogans was “Too big to handle.”
In recent days, some of Trump's fiercest critics, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), have made a similar pitch to Democrats.
In an interview with The Times, Schiff said he is “deeply concerned” about the midterms given all of Trump's threats, but that voters should understand that “the remedy here is to get more involved, not less.”
“The best protection we will have is the most massive voter turnout we have ever had,” he said. “It will be those with the most important title in our system – the voters – who will end up saving this country.”
