Why Americans Might Not Trust the Election Results

Nearly three in five Americans don’t have confidence in the honesty of our elections, a February Gallup poll found. Republicans, Democrats, state officials, grandmothers, first-time voters, the politically engaged, the anti-institutionalists—pretty much the only thing they could agree on was their doubts about the integrity of our democracy.

And that was before the pandemic made everything worse. Now, on top of questions from President Trump about the legitimacy of the election, Russian interference, persistent claims of supposed fraud, and a history of voter suppression, there are all sorts of new worries because of the coronavirus pandemic: long lines, unsafe sites, canceled elections and closed voting locations, absentee ballots faked or claimed to be faked, a collapse of a voting infrastructure that’s being haphazardly reassembled on the fly.

Whoever your pick for president is, if the other guy wins, will you really believe it? Will you trust the margin? Will you trust the results of the lower-level races,