A poll conducted by the World Justice Project — an organization that examines how residents of dozens of countries around the world view their governments — shows that most Republicans are skeptical of the U.S.’s electoral process, with one in seven GOP voters saying they won’t accept the outcome and will “take action” if Donald Trump loses the presidential election.
Questioned by the organization on whether they believe there are “proper checks…to maintain public confidence in the electoral process,” a majority of Americans, 68.7 percent, responded affirmatively, including 83 percent of Democratic respondents. But Republicans were split on the matter, with about 49 percent saying they agreed with the statement and 51 percent saying they didn’t believe proper checks were in place.
A majority of Republicans also disagreed with the statement that “the electoral process protects against fraudulent votes,” with only 40 percent agreeing with that idea and 60 percent disagreeing. Among voters overall, those numbers were flipped, with around 60 percent agreeing that the electoral process guards against fraud, and only 40 percent disagreeing.
A majority of Republicans (almost 57 percent) said they don’t think that votes in the U.S. can be counted accurately, disagreeing with a majority of voters overall (68 percent) who said they can be.
Worryingly, close to one in two Republicans (45.85 percent) said they would not accept the election results if Trump lost the race. That’s a significantly higher rate than voters overall, with only one in five (21.02 percent) saying they wouldn’t accept the results, and around four in five (close to 79 percent) saying they would accept the outcome.
About 14 percent of Republicans said they would also “take action to overturn the results” of the election if the outcome wasn’t to their liking — equivalent to around one in seven GOP voters. Only about 1 in 10 Democrats said the same, should Trump win.
The poll didn’t specify exactly what it meant by “take action to overturn the results.” History provides starkly different reactions to presidential losses in the past by both parties. In 2016, when Trump won the election over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, Democrats didn’t question the results of the election. (Although the Green Party requested recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign itself didn’t take part.) Meanwhile, on January 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying the Electoral College results of the 2020 presidential election, a mob of Trump loyalists violently breached the Capitol building with hopes of disrupting the proceedings.
The poll is consistent with others showing increases in the rate of people believing that using violence to achieve political ends is justifiable, particularly on the right. A Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll published last week, for example, found that one in six Americans overall supported the use of political violence — the rate among Republicans was higher, with around one in four saying they supported the idea.
Both the World Justice Project poll and the PRRI survey come months before Congress will certify the 2024 presidential election results on January 6, 2025. Polling on the election currently shows that Harris has increased her national lead slightly over Trump since their debate earlier this month, and that the Electoral College situation, though still very close, slightly favors her as well.
Some Democrats in Congress are concerned that, if Harris wins and Trump supporters do not accept the results, it could result in another chaotic situation at the Capitol. Notably, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Ohio) is among the dozens of Republicans who voted against certifying states’ electoral votes in 2020; Johnson also wrote an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of Trump-aligned House lawmakers, urging justices to overturn the race over baseless claims of election fraud in swing states. If Republicans retain control of the House and take control of the Senate this fall, it would be easier for them to undo the election results through similar maneuvers.
“It would be silly to ignore the history here,” Rep. Joe Morelle (D-New York) told Politico on the matter.
Morelle has indicated that Democrats are readying themselves for such worst-case scenarios, just in case Trump-aligned Republicans try to overturn the election if Harris wins.
Democrats are “prepared for any eventuality and … we’ll be in a position to press forward and make sure there’s a peaceful transfer,” Morelle said.