Voting By Mail For Presidential Election Supported By Most Americans, According To New Poll

A majority of Americans support voting by mail, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll, countering President Donald Trump’s insistence that the process opens up the election to fraud. The survey also showed that an overwhelming majority believe there’s no reason to delay the November 3 election, an idea the POTUS had floated.

The topic has become a hot-button issue in this referendum. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, while some states have allowed voters to cast their ballots via the postal service for years, other states have taken steps to expand the process amid the coronavirus pandemic. Officials are concerned about crowding people into tight spaces at polling stations in order to cast their votes.

The president, however, has steadfastly opposed the process. He even threatened to sue Nevada when the state passed a law that would send a mail-in ballot to every balloter. Despite Trump’s opposition, 58 percent of respondents said that the U.S. “should allow all voters to vote by mail-in elections this year.”

However, when the responses were broken down along party lines, a glaring partisan rift was evident. Among poll answerers who identified as Democrats, 81 percent favored universal mail-in balloting, as did 57 percent of Independents. However, only 33 percent of Republicans supported it.

Similarly, when asked if allowing expanded voting by post endangers the integrity of the referendum, only 10 percent of Democrats and 17 percent of Independents said it does. By comparison, 57 percent sided with Trump, saying that it does.

Poll respondents were also asked to consider the president’s suggestion to delay the election. Only seven percent of answerers were on board with delaying the referendum, while 86 percent said that it should be held, as scheduled, on November 3, whether or not the coronavirus pandemic is still raging at that time.

When respondents were asked what method of voting they personally preferred, balloters were pretty evenly split, with 48 percent saying they would rather vote by post if given the option, while 46 percent said they would prefer to do so in-person at a physical location, assuming social distancing was practiced by officials and the other voters.

Again, there was a partisan divide in the responses. Two-thirds of Republicans said they’d prefer to vote in-person, while just under two-thirds of Democrats said they’d prefer to cast their votes by mail.

And as to whether or not they were concerned about the contracting or spreading the coronavirus at a polling place, 58 percent said they are either “somewhat concerned” or “very concerned” about it, while 38 percent said they are not.