Recent events in the United States have led to a dramatic drop in confidence in elections across both major parties and independents, according to research from UC San Diego released Wednesday.
In a national survey of 11,406 eligible voters by the Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections, founded last year at UCSD, produced in collaboration with the university's Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research, 60% of respondents said they are confident votes will be counted accurately nationwide in the 2026 midterms. Just after the 2024 presidential election, that figure stood at 77%.
The survey of 11,406 eligible voters — conducted Dec. 19, 2025 through Jan. 12 — found trust declined by 17% among Republicans, 13% among Democrats and 16% among independents.
When asked whether recent redistricting efforts such as those in California and Texas amount to attempts to "rig" the 2026 midterms, survey respondents most often blamed the opposing party. However, nearly 25% of members of each party also assigned responsibility to their own leaders.
"When both parties see redistricting as `rigging,' it's a sign of a deeper legitimacy problem: Our data show voters don't believe the lines are being drawn for fairness - they think they're being drawn for advantage," said Thad Kousser, CTTE co-director and professor in UCSD's Department of Political Science.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump have publicly discussed the political implications of redistricting. The two states have differed, however, because California put redistricting to a public vote, whereas Texas did not.
According to the CTTE survey, 27% of Democrats, 21% of independents and 35% of Republicans say they trust that district lines are drawn in a way that fairly reflects what voters want.
Republicans expressed higher levels of distrust about mail ballots and whether noncitizens will be prevented from casting ballots.
The conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation — one of the biggest backers of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote — has claimed noncitizens voting is a major issue. In the group's own records, there have been 68 documented cases of residents casting a ballot in a United States election since the 1980s, somewhere around 0.0001% of all votes cast in the past 40 years.
The SAVE Act would require a passport or Real ID to vote, both of which cost. Opponents say this is essentially a poll tax which could disenfranchise millions. It has passed in the House but would require 60 votes to pass the Senate.
As for this year's elections, 37% of survey respondents said it is likely that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will be present at voting sites in their area: 45% among Hispanic respondents, 44% of Black respondents, 41% of Asian American respondents and 33% of white respondents.
According to the researchers, more respondents across racial and ethnic groups said ICE presence would make them less confident rather than more confident that votes in their community would be counted as intended.
"Our data reveal it's not just an abstract fear - many voters expect ICE at their polling place, and that expectation erodes confidence in the count," said Lauren Prather, CTTE co-director and associate professor of political science at the School of Global Policy and Strategy.
The Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections is a nonpartisan initiative to build sustained partnerships with election administrators across the country, test new ways to increase transparency and share strategies with the goal of "growing lasting trust across the political spectrum," according to the center's mission statement when it launched last year.
"Public confidence in elections is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy, but we've seen that voters can lose that trust," said Ashley Quarcoo, executive director of the Election Trust Initiative. "The Center for Trusted and Transparent Elections will bring together researchers and election officials to identify proven ways to strengthen voter confidence, regardless of who or what is on the ballot."
