Poll: More NH voters confident about election integrity

(The Center Square) – New Hampshire voters are increasingly confident regarding the integrity of the state's electoral system ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a new poll.

The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire's Survey Center, found nearly three-quarters of Granite Staters voted in the midterms, and said they are confident their vote was accurately counted.

Pollsters found voters were more likely than in the 2020 or 2016 presidential elections to be "very confident" their vote was accurately counted.

"In the wake of the controversy surrounding the 2020 election, much concern has been expressed about two aspects of voting; that votes would be counted accurately and that voters would be able to easily cast their votes," UNH pollsters wrote in the report. "New Hampshire voters believe both of these to be true."

But the survey of 1,000 New Hampshire voters, conducted Nov. 17-21, also found divisions along party lines with Republicans less confident their vote was accurately counted.

Nearly all Democrats (96%) and Independents (72%) expressed confidence about the integrity of their vote last month, while only 52% of Republicans felt confident.

A similar poll conducted in June by the UNH survey center found nearly two-thirds of Granite Staters who voted in the 2020 presidential elections said they were confident their vote was accurately counted. But the responses differed along party lines, with only 29% of Republicans saying they were confident their vote was counted accurately, the poll found.

Discredited allegations of fraud

Election integrity has been an issue in New Hampshire since the 2016 election, when then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump falsely claimed busloads of Massachusetts Democrats were brought into the state to vote against him.

Trump reiterated the allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 elections, which he ultimately lost.

Those claims were discredited by then New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, a Democrat, who said there was no evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 elections.

Despite that, Republican lawmakers cited a lack of confidence among the public regarding the integrity of elections as they pushed through a new law creating a specific kind of "affidavit ballot" for New Hampshire voters who don't have the required identification. Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, signed the legislation.

The law is now facing legal challenges from voting rights groups and Democrats who argue it will suppress voting, and is unnecessary because there is no evidence of voter fraud.

Efforts to shore up voter confidence

Meanwhile, Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican who took over for Gardner, formed a new state committee to study public confidence in the election system.

The panel held public "listening sessions" this summer to gauge input from citizens on how the state might improve transparency in the election process.

"Our challenge is to make the process more transparent, help people understand it, so that there is no mystery,” Scanlan told reporters in April. "If we can do that, it is much harder to create a situation where people can claim conspiracies."

This story was produced by The Center Square, a project of the Franklin News Foundation. (The headline, subheads, data embed and related links on this page were added by Granite Memo.)