On Tuesday, the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) released a new poll of Republican voters, conducted by Echelon Insights, revealing what Republicans believe about the 2020 election's integrity and how this may impact their voting behavior in the future.

The data has indicated that Republicans vote less when they don’t trust the ballot boxes. The question has been asked whether Trump’s election campaign assertions cost Republicans the red wave they were expecting but didn’t really get in 2022.

Pollster's Take

“This poll confirms that the campaign to discredit elections has grievously injured Republican voter confidence,” David Becker, JD, Executive Director and Founder of CEIR.

“One out of every six Republican voters say that they are less likely to vote in the midterms unless “forensic audits” are conducted across the country, which is both completely unnecessary and highly unlikely.”

“The evidence suggests that election denial could have a long-term negative effect on turnout, particularly among Republicans and Trump voters.

"As we enter another national election cycle, we’ll continue to monitor whether the constant lies about election rigging and stolen votes provide a disincentive for the voters who believe those lies to turn out and vote,” Becker promised.

Poll Results

75% of GOP and Trump voters believe the 2020 elections in their community were conducted very/somewhat well, compared to 61% at the state level and 33% at the national level.

Republican and Trump voters in Arizona (46%), Pennsylvania (40%) and Georgia (52%) have substantially less confidence in the administration of elections at the state level than the national sample.

Less than one-third of Republican and Trump voters (32%) are confident that ballots were accurately tallied across the United States in 2020. At 38%, confidence remains low heading into 2022.

Nearly half (48%) of Republican and Trump voters believe election officials intentionally miscounted ballots in 2020 on a moderate/extensive scale.

In contrast to the majority of the other states sampled, Arizona's rate of skepticism was nearly 10 percentage points higher at 57%.

Questioning election integrity hurting Republican turnout

16% of Republican and Trump voters are less likely to vote in 2022 if forensic audits are not conducted. This is four times the amount of individuals who say they would be less likely to vote if forensic audits were conducted.

When elections have been thoroughly audited and verified in accordance with the law, as the 2020 election was over a year ago, "forensic audits" are not a common election practice. Even when such efforts were made, as in Arizona, they were unable to detect misconduct or cast doubt on the results.

60% of Republican and Trump voters support forensic audits in every state, while a plurality (47%) only supports forensic audits in states won by Biden.