WASHINGTON — A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicates that American voters are significantly less confident in the accuracy of the presidential vote count than they were in 2016. The poll also indicates their plans for how they plan to vote differ widely based on who they plan to support.
The poll indicates that 45 percent of voters are not confident that the results of the presidential election will be counted accurately. This is up from 34 percent who said the same thing four years ago.
The same number -- 45 percent -- say that they are confident in the 2020 total vote count. That number is also down from 2016, when that number was 59 percent.
When asked about ballots cast by mail, which President Donald Trump has said -- without evidence -- have a potential for fraud and foreign influence, 44 percent of voters say they are confident that mailed-in ballots will be counted accurately. Fifty-one percent of voters disagree with that assessment.
Overall, the poll shows that 30 percent of voters say they plan to vote by mail, 20 percent say they plan to vote early at an in-person polling place, and 43 percent say they plan to go to the polls in person on Election Day.
The survey's results about voting and voting behaviors are characterized by large divides by party and by choice of presidential candidate.
Supporters of Democratic candidate Joe Biden are far more likely to vote by mail than supporters of the president. Nearly half of Biden supporters, 47 percent, say they plan to mail in their ballot, with an additional 21 percent of Democratic voters saying they plan to vote at an early voting location.
Just over a quarter of Democratic voters, 26 percent of them, say they plan to vote in person at the polls on Election Day.
However, and in sharp contrast, a full two-thirds -- 66 percent -- of Trump supporters say they plan to go to the polls on Election Day, while only 11 percent say they intend to vote by mail. Only 20 percent say they will vote early at an in-person location.
“The 2020 Election will be a socially siloed affair with Democrats being much more likely to employ the mailbox and Republicans the ballot box,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research, which conducted the poll along with Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies.
According to the poll, Republican voters, overall, have much lower confidence that the election results will be counted accurately, as compared to their Democratic counterparts.
Thirty-six percent of Republican voters say they have confidence that the results will be counted accurately, while 23 percent of them say the same of ballots sent by mail. At the same time, 73 percent of Republican voters believe votes cast by mail will not be counted accurately.
Democratic voters, on the other hand, have far more faith in the accuracy of the vote-counting process.
According to the poll, 55 percent of Democrats say they are confident in the overall voting process, while an even higher percentage, 65 percent, say they have confidence in the process of tallying the mail-in vote.
Among Democratic voters, 54 percent say they prefer that their state's voters receive either a ballot application in the mail that they must complete and return in order to receive a ballot, as in Georgia's case, or that they automatically receive a ballot by mail that is ready to cast.
Nearly three-quarters of Republican voters, 73 percent, reject both of those options. A majority of Democratic voters, 53 percent of them, say voters in their state should automatically receive ballots in the mail without an application requirement.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll was conducted August 9-12, 2020. The margin of error for 900 registered voters is +/- 3.27 percentage points.