PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An election integrity group that focuses on responsible use of technology is out with results of a study on ways to maintain and increase confidence in the voting process, saying communication and education are key.
Verified Voting used surveys of likely voters and focus groups with registered Republicans and Democrats from four battleground states: Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.
"Democrats are most likely to defend elections everywhere across the country, while independents and Republicans — they have questions about other states, but they still tended to defend their local elections in the focus groups," said Corrie Emerson, Verified Voting communications director.
"Voters are confident about the election systems in their own states, which is really encouraging, but they do have little to no knowledge about how they actually work."
Communications specialist Aurora Matthews says the surveys and focus groups find voters consider state and local elections officials the most trustworthy source of information, while national and local media ranked near the bottom, quoting one Pennsylvanian as saying, "No one is non-partisan anymore."
But, Matthews said, those local elections officials are stretched too thinly.
"They're having to balance a high volume of work with not enough staff and not enough funding. And so communication sometimes is the thing that falls by the wayside."
Emerson says voters who are skeptical about the process gain confidence when they're told about risk-limiting audits — post-election hand counts that ensure the machines are counting correctly. But she says with a lack of communication, misinformation and disinformation gains steam.
"Voters who were initially not confident in elections, and then heard the limited audit description and became confident, were majority white, non-college, pro-Trump Republicans," Emerson said.
Emerson says that shows the need for election education.
