By Michael Bitzer
With the appointment by the state auditor of three Republicans and two Democrats to the N.C. State Board of Elections, Republicans now control the state's election administrative agency.
In the announcement of the three Republican appointees (two new and one currently serving on the Board), Auditor David Bolick stated "We need full confidence in our elections..." and that "(m)anaging our elections is no small task. It takes time, dedication, and professionalism."
Catawba College and YouGov polled North Carolinians regarding their confidence in elections, specifically asking in August 2024*, "Regardless of whether your candidate or party wins or loses the election this November in North Carolina, how confident will you be in the safety, security, and integrity of the election in North Carolina?" and then in January 2025* asked, "Regardless of whether your candidate or party won or lost the election in North Carolina, how confident were you in the safety, security, and integrity of the election in North Carolina?"
Both surveys also asked the respondent's level of confidence in votes being counted in their county and in North Carolina. Each question used "very, somewhat, not too much, or not at all" when asking about confidence or not regarding votes being accurately counted.
In August 2024, 70 percent of North Carolinian respondents (1,000, with a margin of error of +/- 3.87 percent, adjusted for weighting) expressed confidence in the security and integrity of the state's elections, with only 23 percent having no confidence. But within the general population, distinct differences were evident based on self-identified partisanship.
While 27 percent of all North Carolinians were 'very confident' in the state's safety & integrity of its elections, 44 percent of Democrats were very confident, while only 13 percent of Republicans were very confident. Conversely, one-third of Republicans expressed a lack of confidence, compared to 14 percent of Democrats.
Flash-forward to after the election: in January 2025, the same question about confidence in the safety and integrity of the state's elections, and 8 out of 10 North Carolinians (this survey had 1,500 respondents, with a margin of error of +/- 3.08 percent, adjusted for weighting) expressed confidence, while only 15 percent expressed a lack of confidence. But again, the partisan dynamic was significant.
Following Trump's presidential victory, 86 percent of Republicans expressed confidence in the state's election safety and integrity, a shift of 23 percentage points. Before the election, only 13 percent of Republicans expressed the highest level of confidence, but in January, that number grew to 38 percent.
Democrats remained about the same (83 percent compared to 81 percent in August), while independents increased their confidence from 69 percent to 75 percent.
Confidence in County and State Vote Counting
Both surveys also asked about confidence in the county and state-level counting of votes. In August, three-quarters of North Carolinians expressed confidence in their votes being counted in their county.
Again, partisan differences were evident: 88 percent of Democrats were confident in their county, while two-thirds of Republicans expressed confidence. Conversely, thirty percent of Republicans expressed no confidence, while only 9 percent of Democrats did.
In January, while the general population continued to express confidence in their county (78 percent), the partisan dynamics shifted considerably.
85 percent of Republicans had confidence in their county's counting of votes, a jump of 18 percentage points, while Democrats saw a drop of 13 percentage points in confidence (still, three-quarters of Democrats were confident in their county).
As to confidence in the state, 71 percent of North Carolinians expressed confidence that votes outside their county but in the state would be counted accurately in August 2024. In January 2025, that number stayed about the same at 72 percent. But within those confidence levels, a shift occurred in terms of those who were 'very' versus 'somewhat' confident.
In August, 38 percent had the highest level of confidence ('very') for the state counting of votes, but in January, that number dropped ten points, down to 28 percent, with a ten point increase among those who said they were "somewhat" confident.
Among Democrats, there was a twenty-three point drop from August to January in those who were very confident in votes being accurately counted across the state, while Republicans saw a twelve-point increase among those who were somewhat confident between the two surveys.
Ultimately, the lesson learned is that partisanship--and whether your candidate won or not--can have a meaningful influence on how respondents express their confidence in the election system and administration.
And while society will never have 100 percent confidence in pretty much anything nowadays (just take a look at opinions on barbecue styles within the state), having 70 to 80 percent of North Carolinians express confidence in the safety and integrity of their elections is a solid foundation of support.
Of course, there's always room to grow citizen confidence in the engine that ultimately drives our democratic-republic: elections and election administration.
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Dr. Michael Bitzer holds the Leonard Chair of Political Science at Catawba College, where he is a professor of politics and history and directs the college's Center for N.C. Politics & Public Service.
* The August poll was paid for by the Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service at Catawba College, while the January 2025 poll was paid for by the N.C. Politics Center and the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. Both polls were for the Commission on the Future of N.C. Elections and were conducted online by YouGov, which interviewed 1129 North Carolina respondents who were then matched down to a sample of 1000 to produce the final August dataset; the January dataset was 1,564 North Carolina respondents interviewed and who were then matched down to a sample of 1,500. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. The sampling frame is a politically representative "modeled frame" of North Carolina adults, based upon the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and 2020 presidential vote.
The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined, and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education, and region. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles. The weights were then post-stratified on 2020 and 2024 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories), race (4-categories), and education (4-categories), to produce the final weight.
