SAN DIEGO — As the Nov. 5 election nears, UC San Diego released a new study about voter trust. It found voters who were told a past election took six days for results to be announced lost trust in the election, but that number jumped back up when they watched a video that explains how ballots are processed.
"You can make up for the distrust that comes from having to take so long to count these ballots if you communicate with voters about why that is," Study Author Mackenzie Lockhart said.
10,000 Americans were surveyed in 2023 on their attitude toward trust in elections by the the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at UC San Diego.
"Some of the Americans in our sample saw a video produced by the Arizona Secretary of State that explained why election results in Arizona often take days or even weeks to count after an election, and some of them didn't see that information," Lockhart said.
The questions were based on a 2022 Arizona governor election, which is relevant for voter trust because Arizona is a swing state. Everyone in the study was told the democrat in the race won the election, but only half were told it took six days for the AP to call the race.
"It went from 66% of people who said that they trusted elections to only 60% who said they trust elections when they found out that the ballots took so long to count," Lockhart said.
But trust went back up to 65% in those who watched the video.
"We find across the board whether they're Democrats, Independents, Republicans, whether they trusted elections before or not, we see an increase in how much respondents trust elections after seeing this video," Lockhart said,
The 40 second video said two main things as to why accurate elections take time: Election officials must signature verify each early ballot envelope and tabulate all early ballots submitted on and before election day.
I went to ballot drop-off site and showed a few people the same video to see what they think.
"I think a video like that would be helpful so that it builds trust and then you don't have to be questioning anymore," one person said.
"I mean it’ll give peace of mind if anything, and that's what people usually need is just a peace of mind, just secure," another said. "But what really can you do? Watch that video and not much."
"I think information is always helpful because it leads to understanding, but it is an interesting double edged sword, right? Because the more information you have sometimes allows you for more questions," someone said.
The County Registrar of Voters will release unofficial results throughout the night on election day. The next results won't be announced until two days later. The Registrar of Voters expects to receive between 30,000 and 500,000 mail-in ballots after election day.