A new survey conducted by a pollster for President Trump’s reelection team showed broad support for more absentee voting and other mail-in options amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The survey, led by Tony Fabrizio and David Lee for the nonpartisan elections group Secure Democracy, found voters overwhelmingly supported keeping in-person voting open as long as polling stations complied with health and safety guidelines administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but they also largely supported expanding absentee voting.
The survey, which was obtained by Axios, found:
- Voters favored keeping in-person voting open by an 81% to 11% margin as long as polling places comply with the CDC for safety.
- Voters favored keeping in-person voting open and allowing absentee voting as an option by a 76%-16% margin.
- Seventy-six percent of voters were in favor of allowing voters to request an absentee ballot, and 73% were in favor of allowing online absentee ballots.
- Seventy-six percent of voters favored states and localities providing postage-paid return envelopes for those who choose to vote absentee.
- Seventy-four percent of voters favored having secure drop-off locations for absentee ballots.
- Sixty-four percent of voters were in favor of sending every voter an absentee ballot application.
Trump has criticized the option for mailing in ballots, calling the process a “recipe for fraud.”
“Mail ballots, they cheat,” Trump said last month. “Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters.”
Trump’s comments came amid Wisconsin’s decision to hold an in-person Election Day in April despite major pushback from the state’s Democratic leadership.
Gov. Tony Evers supported efforts to delay the election and allow expanded mail-in voting as an alternative method while the pandemic brought a rise in COVID-19 cases in the state. The governor’s executive order was met with GOP resistance in the state legislature and, ultimately, a state Supreme Court decision to hold the election in-person on its originally intended date.
The poll, which was conducted with 1,000 registered voters between April 17 and April 20, surveyed demographics that identified as 31% Republican, 36% Democrat, 31% independent, and 2% other party affiliation. The margin of sampling error was 3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence interval.
