Almost Seven Out of 10 Republicans Falsely Believe Millions of Undocumented Immigrants Voted in the 2016 Election
A majority of Republican voters (52%) say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election until the country can ensure only U.S. citizens are able to vote, if President Trump suggested it. That number increases to 56% if the Congress agrees, according to a new poll from The Washington Post.
Despite the repeatedly proven fact there is no widespread voter fraud, Republicans increasingly believe there is, thanks to the false claims Trump and his team have been making – even since before he was sworn in to office.Â
The Post’s poll of 1325 Americans, taken in June, also reveals an astonishing 47 percent wrongly believe Donald Trump won the popular vote. (Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, by almost 3 million votes.)Â
The rest of the results don’t get any better.
68 percent of Republicans believe millions of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2016 election, which Donald Trump has repeatedly stated, despite there being zero evidence of that claim.
And nearly three out of four Republicans believe voter fraud happens somewhat or very often.
To be clear, none of these beliefs are true.
“Not surprisingly, beliefs about the 2016 election and voter fraud were correlated with support for postponement,” The Washington Post notes. “People who believed that Trump won the popular vote, that there were millions of illegal votes in 2016, or that voter fraud is not rare were more likely to support postponing the election. This support was also more prevalent among Republicans who were younger, were less educated, had less factual knowledge of politics and strongly identified with the party.”
Let’s replay that last piece:
“This support was also more prevalent among Republicans who were younger, were less educated, had less factual knowledge of politics and strongly identified with the party.”
Donald Trump has said, “I love the poorly-educated.”
Postponing the election, outside of an emergency – say, major natural disaster – would likely be challenged as unconstitutional.
But the Post warns these results “show that a substantial number of Republicans are amenable to violations of democratic norms that are more flagrant than what is typically proposed (or studied).”
And that should be of great concern.
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Image by drpavloff via Flickr and a CC license