According to a new poll conducted by The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports, more than 60 percent of likely voters, both nationally and in the battleground states, are concerned that cheating will affect the outcome of the 2024 election.
Specifically, 62 percent of likely national voters expressed concern about election integrity, with 37 percent saying they are very concerned and 25 percent somewhat concerned. Throughout the swing states (Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan), the exact same number of likely voters, 62 percent, believe the 2024 election will be tainted by election fraud, with 38 percent very concerned and 24 percent somewhat concerned.
The results of this latest poll on the state of U.S. elections should not come as a surprise, considering that two previous polls underscore that Americans’ confidence in free and fair elections is waning.
In December 2023, Heartland and Rasmussen conducted a poll asking voters if they had committed election fraud in the 2020 election. In short, 17 percent of mail-in voters admitted that in 2020, they voted in a state where they are “no longer a permanent resident,” 21 percent of mail-in voters admitted that they filled out a ballot for a friend or family member, 17 percent of mail-in voters said they signed a ballot for a friend or family member “with or without his or her permission,” and 8 percent of likely voters say they were offered “pay” or a “reward” for voting in 2020.
In April 2024, Heartland and Rasmussen conducted a follow-up poll, asking likely voters if they would commit election fraud in the 2024 election. Based on the results, nearly three in 10 likely voters said they would be willing to vote illegally “to prevent other side from winning.” In other words, approximately 44 million voters admit that they are willing to commit election fraud on November 5, 2024.
Among the examples of illegal voting scenarios that voters say they would engage in include voting in multiple states; destroying mail-in ballots of friends or family members; paying or offering rewards to fellow voters; deliberately providing incorrect information about the place, time, or date associated with casting a ballot; and/or altering candidate selections on mail-in ballots.
Despite these and other polls showing that election integrity is a large problem, the mainstream media have generally ignored these concerns. Even worse, after the highly controversial 2020 election, the vast majority of legacy media outlets bent over backward to dismiss any notions of election fraud possibly affecting the outcome of the Biden-Trump match-up.
Throughout the media universe, Americans were told again and again that the 2020 election was the most free and fair in U.S. history. However, polling data and common sense say otherwise.
Looking back, the 2020 election was unlike any other in U.S. history because it occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, and several states, including most of the key swing states, abandoned traditional voting procedures in favor of mass mail-in voting.
The 2020 election was also rife with ballot harvesting, a shady practice in which political operatives can collect and return ballots on behalf of voters. Unattended ballot drop boxes were utilized across the nation, further undermining election integrity efforts. And let’s not forget that several states arbitrarily changed election rules without approval from the state legislature, which violates the U.S. Constitution.
Perhaps most egregiously, many states sent absentee ballots based on notoriously inaccurate and outdated voter rolls. In fact, according to the most recent Heartland/Rasmussen poll, nearly 20 percent of national and battleground state voters admit that they received more than one mail-in ballot at their residence in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, including ballots for people who no longer reside at that address.
With a little more than four months before Election Day 2024, there is little that can be done to assuage voters’ concerns about the possibility of election fraud tainting or even changing the outcome of this pivotal election.
Although some states, such as Florida and Georgia, have taken steps to shore up their state election processes, several others, including most of the key battleground states, have done nothing to prevent the possibility of widespread election fraud going forward.
This is very troubling news for those who believe strongly in election integrity. Free and fair elections are the bedrock of a well-functioning society. As history has shown, once the populace loses faith in the integrity of the election process, very bad things can follow. Obviously, I hope that never happens in the United States. However, like most of the voters in the aforementioned poll, I am highly concerned we are on the edge of the election integrity precipice.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is the editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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