Days after Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen said that democracy everywhere including in the United States has ‘weaknesses’, a new survey in the US says that only about half of Americans have high confidence that votes in the upcoming midterm elections will be counted accurately.
According to the new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, just 9% of US adults think democracy is working “extremely” or “very well,” while 52% say it’s not working well, New York-based global news agency The Associated Press (AP) has reported.
The survey says many Americans remain pessimistic about the state of US democracy and the way elected officials are chosen — nearly two years after a divisive presidential election spurred false claims of widespread fraud and a violent attack on the US Capitol, according to AP.
In a reversal from two years ago, Republicans are now more likely than Democrats to say democracy is not working well.
This year, 68% of Republicans feel this way compared with 32% two years ago. The share of Democrats with a sour outlook on how democracy is functioning in the US dropped from 63% to 40%, the report says.
After every presidential election, members of the losing candidate’s party can experience a letdown. The fallout from the 2020 election has been deeper, fueled by the lies from former President Donald Trump and his allies that Democrats stole the election, AP said.
The general despair over democracy comes after decades of increasing polarisation nationwide, from the presidential and congressional races down to local contests such as races for school boards.
Overall, just a quarter of US adults — including similar percentages of Republicans and Democrats — say they are optimistic about the way leaders are chosen, while 43% say they are pessimistic. An additional 31% feel neither.
The AP-NORC poll also found a large segment of Republicans, 58%, still believe Biden’s election wasn’t legitimate. That’s down slightly from 66% in July 2021.
The poll shows 47% of Americans say they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the 2022 midterm elections will be counted accurately.
Confidence is highest among Democrats, 74% of whom say they’re highly confident. On the Republican side, confidence in elections is decidedly mixed: 25% have high confidence, 30% have moderate confidence and 45% have little to no confidence.
That erosion of trust comes after two years of Trump and his allies promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election and peddling conspiracy theories about voting machines.
Narratives about mailed ballots mysteriously changing vote totals have been one persistent source of misinformation. To be clear, results announced on election night are unofficial and often incomplete. It’s normal for counting to continue several days after Election Day, as mailed ballots received by their deadline are processed and added to the tally.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge of mailed balloting as voters opted to avoid crowded polling stations. A large number of those ballots slowed down the results as local election offices worked through the steps to verify the ballots and ensure they matched registered voters.
On October 11, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister criticised foreigners talking about democracy and elections in Bangladesh. He said that democracy in the US has its weaknesses.
“We do have weaknesses (in Bangladesh). But that does not mean that they have (US) the best. They have their own weaknesses,” Momen said.
The AP report echoed Momen’s points.
Gary Phelps, a 70-year-old retired truck driver in Clearwater, Minnesota, accepts Biden as president but doesn’t think he was legitimately elected, according to the AP.
Phelps told the news agency that he was concerned about voter fraud, mail ballots being received and counted after Election Day, and irregularities with some voting machines, although he acknowledged it’s based on his feeling rather than evidence.
Phelps remains concerned about the voting process and whether the tallies will be accurate. “I would hope so, but I don’t think so,” the Republican-leaning independent told the AP.
Source: United News of Bangladesh