Americans are increasingly worried about voting, new poll shows

Americans’ confidence that their elections will be run fairly has dropped to its lowest point in years, according to a new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll.

Ahead of a consequential midterm contest in November, two-thirds of Americans say they are confident their state or local government will run a fair and accurate election, a drop of 10 percentage points from the month before the 2024 presidential election. The percentage who expressed confidence is at the lowest it’s been since Marist first asked this question in 2020.

Two-thirds of Americans say they are confident their state or local government will run a fair and accurate election, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll — a drop of 10 percentage points from the month before the 2024 presidential election. Graphic by Steff Staples/PBS News

The drop has been driven largely by Democrats and independents, whose confidence has dropped 16 and 11 percentage points respectively. Republicans, however, are 3 percentage points more confident in how elections will be run this November, within the poll’s margin of error.

The growing concern comes as President Donald Trump threatens to hold up all legislation until Congress passes a sweeping overall of federal voting rules, despite many states already holding primaries and actively preparing for the general election.

Speaking to House Republicans on Monday, Trump called the SAVE America Act, which already passed the House along party lines last month, his singular legislative priority right now. Among the bill’s components, the most controversial and complicated to implement is a requirement that Americans present proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. The president claims it will prevent non-citizens from committing voter fraud – a very rare occurrence, according to experts – and that the legislation has overwhelming support from voters.

“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said. “If you don’t get it, big trouble.”

One third of Americans say voter fraud is the single biggest threat to keeping elections safe and accurate, according to the new poll. But the public’s anxieties about voting are more complicated and more divided than the president would suggest.

Another 26% cite misleading information as the biggest threat, while 24% say voter suppression. Foreign interference was named by just 8 percent, despite a recent renewed assertion from Trump, as part of his shifting justification for strikes on Iran, that Tehran tried to meddle in recent presidential elections.

Broken down by party, Republicans were most likely – at 57% – to say voter fraud is the biggest threat. Among Democrats, 41% point to voter suppression; about a third of independents are most worried about misleading information.

Overall, voter fraud and voter suppression concerns have risen 9 points and 8 points respectively since January 2020, suggesting ongoing messaging from Republican and Democratic officials have increased those fears among their base voters.

“It’s the politicians driving the cart,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “It’s not being determined by court cases. It’s not been determined by evidence. It’s being shaped by a sense that the other guy’s up to no good.”

Support for voter access

President Donald Trump gestures from the stage next to U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., on March 9 at Trump National Doral Miami in Miami, Florida. The public’s anxieties about voting are more complicated and more divided than the president would suggest. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

While Trump has said the SAVE America Act is an “88% issue with ALL VOTERS,” this latest survey finds Americans are more conflicted about the competing issues of voter access and preventing ineligible votes from being cast.

Nearly 6 in 10 respondents say it is more important to make sure everyone who wants to vote can do so; 41% say their bigger concern is making sure no one votes who is not eligible. The divide has remained relatively stable since 2021. Independents are 7 percentage points more likely in this poll to prioritize voter access.

According to this latest poll, 58% of Americans are concerned that people will show up to the polls in November only to be told they are not eligible, a striking 16 percentage point jump from January 2020. Democrats are driving that concern: nearly three-quarters are worried. Among Republicans and Independents, 47% share that view.

According to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, 58% of Americans are concerned that people will show up to the polls in November only to be told they are not eligible, a striking 16 percentage point jump from January 2020. Graphic by Dan Cooney/PBS News

The poll also reveals a sharp disparity between younger and older voters. Three-quarters of Americans under 30 years old are concerned about voters being told they are not eligible; while just 43% of Americans 60 years old and above share the concern.

It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law, said documented cases of noncitizen voter fraud are extremely rare.

“In 2016, when Donald Trump claimed there were three million noncitizens who voted, it turned out there were 30 possible cases that were documented in the entire country. That’s a miniscule amount,” Hasen said. “We just do not see large hordes of noncitizens voting in the way that Donald Trump routinely describes it.”

David Becker, the executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the administration’s own record undermines its case that voters should be concerned about ineligible voters participating in elections.

“This administration has gone out hunting for fraud with all of the tools of the federal government over the last year and they have found virtually none,” he said. “Their own Department of Homeland Security has found only a shockingly small number of noncitizens that are on the voter list. And yet, that disinformation is clearly infecting the American public to make them doubt their own elections.”

Erosion of election confidence could worsen

File photo: A woman holds the voting booth at an East Harlem school turned into a polling center on Nov. 5, 2024, Election Day, in Manhattan, New York City. Photo by Kent J. Edwards/File Photo/Reuters.

Miringoff described the 10-point drop in confidence since October 2024 as a “be on guard” kind of decline.

“I can only expect that the numbers may even get worse as we get closer to the midterms,” he said. “This may be just a stopping-off point to an erosion in even the state and local confidence people have.”

Already there is a significant drop in confidence among communities of color. While 72% of white Americans think their state and local governments will run elections fairly, just 63% of Black Americans and 57% of Latinos say the same.

“That’s the trust in the system. That’s a sense of history of being excluded,” Miringoff said. “Latinos have been in the spotlight right now politically. And so I’m not surprised that folks who feel they’ve been outside the system or been under a spotlight are not as comfortable and don’t have as much confidence in the system.”

Tammy Patrick, the chief executive officer for programs at The Election Center at the National Association of Election Administrators, said sustained political attacks on local election administrators have had a concrete cost. They’ve driven professionals from the field and could risk further undermining faith in elections, she said.

“It absolutely makes it more difficult to be an election professional when your day-to-day work life is justifying every action that you take, even when you’re proceeding in a lawful and legal manner,” said Patrick, a former election official in Maricopa County, Arizona.

How the SAVE America Act could ‘create chaos’ so close to an election

Workers sort mail-in ballots at the Orange County Registrar of Voters during a Nov. 1, 2022, media tour showing ballot security at the facility in Santa Ana, California. Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters

The timing of the president’s push to question the safety of elections and the public’s dropping confidence could hardly be more consequential. Several states have already held primary elections, and election administrators are well into planning for what will be one of the most closely watched midterm elections in modern American history.

Trump has insisted that the Senate take up and pass the SAVE America Act, getting rid of the 60-vote threshold if necessary. While Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday the chamber would take up the bill next week, he threw cold water on its chances of passing and of eliminating the filibuster to do it.

“The votes aren’t there for a talking filibuster,” Thune said. “It’s just a reality.”

Becker, a former attorney in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said he was unsurprised by the math.

“I’ve talked to Republican and Democratic election officials all over the country at the state and local level, and I’ve yet to find one of them that thinks this is a good bill,” he said. “It would create chaos this close to an election.”

READ MORE: What to know about how the SAVE America Act could change voting

Indeed, if the SAVE America Act were to be signed into law, it would likely be challenged in court. But in the meantime, election administrators across the country would be tasked with implementing sweeping new voter registration requirements in the months before November’s general election.

Patrick, who helped enact Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement after voters approved it by ballot measure, said the experience should give Congress pause.

“It was a number of years before the specifics and the logistics were figured out,” she said. “We are now 20 years post, and still there are some kinks being ironed out.”

Patrick also described buyer’s remorse among voters who supported the law but were then caught up in the complicated implementation.

People “told me that they voted for it, but then they moved within the state and when they moved, they had to prove their citizenship,” she said, noting that many Americans don’t have a passport, a copy of their birth certificate or proof of name changes. “I don’t think there’s anyone that wants ineligible voters to participate in our democracy. Full stop. But what we do want to make sure is that everyone who is eligible doesn’t have obstacles that they have to overcome in order to participate.”

File photo: Voters fill out their ballots at a polling station on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Photo by Julia Nikhinson/For The Washington Post via Getty Images.

Hasen, author of the Election Law Blog, said the proof-of-citizenship requirement at the heart of the SAVE America Act is different from the voter ID laws that see broader public support in many polls.

When Kansas implemented a similar law that required birth certificates or passports to register to vote, 30,000 people – virtually all of them eligible American citizens – were unable to register to vote because of it. The law was later put on hold by a federal court.

Patrick said the populations most affected by documentation requirements are often those already facing barriers to entry: older Americans born at home or in rural areas, women who have changed their names after marriage, Indigenous people, individuals with disabilities and young voters.

“How many young people do you know that have a printer in their home that they would have the ability to print out a document and take it into their local election office?” she asked. “At the surface level, showing ID at the polls, proving you’re a citizen, all sounds well and fine to the general population. But the devil is always in the details. And it’s in those details that we will prevent eligible Americans from participating.”

Besides changes Trump would like to make in how people vote, the president has also floated changing who is watching when they do. He has suggested that National Guard troops could be deployed to monitor polling places, particularly in Democratic cities, on Election Day. His former adviser Steve Bannon has also floated the idea of ICE agents showing up at the polls as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown. (Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently testified that there are no plans to have immigration agents at voting locations, but she didn’t rule it out.)

READ MORE: DHS official promises that federal immigration agents won’t be at polling places during midterm elections

Fifty-four percent of Americans oppose the idea of National Guard troops being deployed to the polls, while 46% support it. Republicans are overwhelmingly supportive, while Democrats and independents are largely opposed.

Becker said the proposal conflicts with existing federal law.

“It is illegal. It is against federal law for troops or armed men – that’s the term in the statute – to appear at any voting location,” Becker said. “It is part of our culture that we vote in a safe and secure environment where we shouldn’t suffer any kind of fear of intimidation.”

Concern over AI misinformation unites Americans

While Americans are largely divided along partisan lines on the necessity and potential effect of new voting regulations, there’s one major area of agreement: artificial intelligence.

According to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, 85% of Americans say it is likely that AI-generated political content will spread misinformation about November’s elections. That includes 86% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans and 88% of independents. Graphic by Dan Cooney?PBS News

According to the latest poll, 85% of Americans say it is likely that AI-generated political content will spread misinformation about November’s elections. That includes 86% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans and 88% of independents.

“That’s a big number when you have such a new phenomenon,” Miringoff said. “The potential for AI to spread misinformation is already happening. It’s more than just potential. It’s reality.”

While the consensus on AI as a source of misinformation provides a potential opening for popular bipartisan action, Hasen said the threats of AI pose a widespread challenge for the administration of elections this year.

“We not only have to worry about the elections being run with integrity, we have to worry about the information environment,” he said. “We have to assure that voters remain with access to reliable sources of information.”

Political calculations for both parties

Worries about election integrity and potential misinformation are also met with a broader political backdrop that is complicating the calculus for both Republicans and Democrats heading into a hard-fought midterm campaign.

Trump’s push could backfire on Republicans, making it harder for some of the GOP’s most enthusiastic voters to participate, Hasen said.

“Donald Trump has been attracting infrequent voters, new voters, people who are not regularly part of the process,” he said. “Those are among the people most likely to be affected by new voting and registration restrictions. He could be shooting himself in the foot again if something like this passed.”

If the congressional election were held today, Democrats hold a 9-point advantage over Republicans among all Americans and a 14-point edge among independents. While the overall advantage has dropped 5 percentage points since November, it is still higher than the 5-point advantage Democrats had in the generic ballot in March 2018, before they went on to win 40 House seats and reclaim the majority during the midterms of Trump’s first term.

READ MORE: Fact-checking DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on her agency’s role in elections

For Republicans who are worried about defending their House and Senate majorities, Trump’s overall job approval presents an added obstacle. More than half — 57% — of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing, while 38% approve. That is relatively unchanged over the past few months but a 7-point drop since last March. His approval on the economy and immigration also hit second-term lows at 35% and 40% respectively, though those marks are within the margins of error from other recent lows.

“Democrats are in the driver’s seat,” Miringoff said.

Trump’s sagging approval rating and his concerns that Republicans may lose control of Congress in November are perhaps fueling his latest push for a revamp in how elections are conducted. He has also in recent days expanded the SAVE America Act beyond its original scope to include a ban on mail-in ballots for most voters and a prohibition on transgender athletes in women’s sports, which could boost Republican enthusiasm in November.

Trump’s efforts to sow doubts about the process of this year’s election, Hasen said, could be his way to delegitimize a potential outcome he does not like as well as any oversight of his administration that a new Democratic majority would try to enforce.

But the bigger concern, according to Hasen, is a potential that the faith in a cornerstone of the American democratic process could be irrevocably broken.

“The real danger is that we lose something that is essential to democracy, which is loser’s consent. The way democracy works is that people who are on the losing side of the election may not be happy with the results, but they accept the election as legitimate,” he said. “I hope that we will be in a period at some point past Donald Trump when we could go back to the bipartisan belief that elections should be freely and fairly conducted, where all eligible voters, but only eligible voters, can cast a ballot that will be fairly counted. It’s a pretty low bar.”

As voters prepare to cast ballots this year, Patrick hopes they’ll see past any confusion and doubts being raised on the national level and instead look to how their local elections are run.

“Voters should, in fact, have confidence in our elections. Our elections are run by professionals all across the country,” she said. “They’re run by volunteers, practically, because they don’t get paid very much – your neighbors, your family, your friends.”

“The equipment is tested and audited. Our elections are transparent and observable,” she added.

PBS News, NPR and Marist Poll conducted a survey from March 2-4, 2026, that polled 1,591 U.S. adults by phone, text and online with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, and 1,392 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.0 percentage points. For Democrats, the margin of error is 5.0 percentage points; Republicans, 5.2 percentage points; independents, 5.9 percentage points.