YouGov recently asked Americans about ballots and post-election vote counting, a week after the 2022 congressional elections. About two in five U.S. adults think that states should be required to count all ballots by the end of Election Day (20%) or the day after the election (22%), while 12% think there should be no specific counting deadline requirement. The remaining 46% want all votes counted by somewhere between two days and more than one week.
Democrats tend to favor allowing longer counting times than Republicans. While 60% of Republicans think that counting should finish on Election Day or the day after, only 35% of Democrats and Independents say the same. Democrats (17%) are also more likely than Republicans (7%) to say there should be no time requirement for ballot counting.
Americans are about evenly divided on whether voting in future elections should be limited to only paper ballots. 42% “strongly” or “somewhat” support using only paper ballots, while 43% “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose the measure. The remaining 14% are unsure.
Democrats and Republicans also disagree about whether to exclusively use paper ballots. A majority of Republicans (58%) support paper ballots, and only 24% oppose their exclusive use. Conversely, only 38% of Democrats support using only paper ballots, while 43% oppose doing so. Independents are split almost evenly on the issue, with their most common response being “not sure.”
See the toplines and crosstabs from this poll:
- By when, if at all, do you think states should be required to have counted all ballots in an election?
- Would you support or oppose limiting voting in future elections to paper ballots only?
Methodology: This Daily Questions survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 5,936 U.S. adults interviewed online on November 16 - 17, 2022. The samples were weighted to be representative of the U.S. population, based on gender, age, race, education, U.S. census region, and political party.
Image: Adobe Stock (richjem)
