URI poll: Confidence in R.I. election systems is high, but voters concerned about political violence, A.I. – The Boston Globe

The latest survey polled 500 state residents between Aug. 15 and Sept. 8. The results were released Tuesday, with a margin of error of 6 percentage points.

“While there are national polls that also focus on American confidence in election administration, our survey results offer a detailed snapshot of Rhode Islanders’ levels of trust in election authorities and systems and trust in government as well as attitudes about democracy, media, policy, and political participation in the state,” Emily Lynch, a professor of political science at URI, said in a statement.

“The survey results indicate that Rhode Islanders trust state election systems, but at the same time they have concerns about the upcoming election in a number of areas, such as AI-generated fake political information and political violence,” Lynch continued.

Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they believe votes are “very often” counted accurately in Rhode Island elections and campaigns. Twenty-nine percent said votes are counted accurately “somewhat often,” another 13 percent said “not often,” and 8 percent believe votes are “not at all often” tallied accurately.

Results also show most respondents have a “great deal or fair amount of trust in election authorities,” from poll workers up to the state Board of Elections and Department of State, as well as in the state’s voting machines, pollsters said.

However, that trust wanes a bit when it comes to mail ballot drop boxes and using the U.S. Postal Service to mail a ballot: Just 34 percent and 35 percent of Republicans had at least “a fair amount” of trust in those two methods, respectively. Eighty four percent of Democrats and 43 percent of independents feel that way about both of those voting options.

There is also a partisan divide over voter fraud.

“A majority of Republicans and independents are somewhat or very concerned about voter fraud – specifically noncitizen voting, citizens voting more than once, vote tampering, and people claiming to be another person in order to vote,” pollsters said. “Democrats lagged on all four questions – with the highest level of concern (37 percent) found with regard to vote tampering.”

Still, majorities of Democrats (85 percent), Republicans (79 percent), and independents (73 percent) think political violence “is a somewhat or very big problem in the U.S. today” and a “smaller majority of all three are concerned about civil unrest after election day in Rhode Island,” the survey found.

Meanwhile, approximately six in 10 respondents said they are worried artificial intelligence will “somewhat or greatly hurt the election process.”

Seventy-nine percent of Republicans, 77 percent of Democrats, and 77 percent of independents indicated they are “somewhat or very concerned about the use of AI-generated political media, such as fake images or video, and support state legislation to ban AI-generated political media,” according to poll results.

In the presidential election, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris holds a firm lead amongst Rhode Island voters over former President Donald Trump, polling 53 percent to 27 percent, respectively. In the U.S. Senate race, most of those surveyed backed incumbent Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, or 52 percent, over the 24 percent who said they will vote for his Republican challenger, state Representative Patricia Morgan.

The results also showed an increase of five percentage points – up to 22 percent – of Rhode Islanders who consider the state’s economy “very or somewhat strong.”

Respondents also indicated they largely back more state spending on schools, housing, and road repair.

Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.