Election confidence rises among Georgia Republicans after Trump’s win
Georgia voters’ confidence that their ballots were counted accurately jumped after this year’s election — especially among Republicans — since Donald Trump’s victory, according to a new University of Georgia survey.
About 92% of all voters surveyed said they were either very confident or somewhat confident their ballots were counted as they intended, a sharp increase from 78% who expressed confidence after Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
While Republicans’ faith in elections increased, Democrats’ trust in the count fell this year.
Nearly 98% of respondents who identified themselves as Republicans said they believed their ballots were counted as intended, up from 60% when the same question was asked after the 2020 race.
Among Democrats, 84% said they believe their ballots were counted correctly, down from 96% after the 2020 election.
This year’s election outcome was less contentious than the last one four years ago, when Trump falsely claimed there was massive fraud. Trump won by 2 percentage points in Georgia this year compared with Biden’s 0.2-percentage-point victory in 2020.
“Georgia elections are on the right track. These results show what we’ve been saying all along: Georgia elections are secure and accessible,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said.
The survey was conducted Nov. 11-20 by UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs. It included 1,541 registered Georgia voters who self-reported as having voted in this year’s general election. The margin of error is 2.5 percentage points.
The survey was funded by a grant from the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at the University of California, San Diego.
Although voters expressed confidence after the election, they were doubtful beforehand.
Nearly 3 out of 10 likely voters lacked confidence the election would be conducted fairly, according to a UGA poll in October commissioned by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The latest UGA survey also showed that broad majorities of voters found it easier to vote this year.
About 21% of Georgia voters said it was easier to cast a ballot than in the last election they voted in, and 3% said it was harder to vote. About 76% said there was no difference.
Few voters reported they had to wait long to vote. Almost 81% of voters said their wait was less than 10 minutes. Just 2% of voters said they waited more than 31 minutes, and less than 1% waited over an hour.
About the Author
Mark Niesse is an enterprise reporter and covers elections and Georgia government for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is considered an expert on elections and voting. Before joining the AJC, he worked for The Associated Press in Atlanta, Honolulu and Montgomery, Alabama. He also reported for The Daily Report and The Santiago Times in Chile.
