When this study
Few American Voters Ever Changed Their Minds, showed that nearly 30% of the public (the same number cited by the Carter-Baker Commission) were not confident in the election, including 10% who believed something went wrong, it was a place to start to build public awareness. It would have taken years, but there was tremendous stonewalling on the issue.
From the survey:
Respondents were asked to rate the honesty of the campaigns on a scale of zero to ten. The average for the Bush campaign was 6.8 and for the Kerry campaign it was 7.2. Bush voters gave his campaign less credit for honesty than Kerry voters gave his. Bush voters rated their campaign at an average of 8.4, while Kerry supporters rated his at 9.1. There was less difference in how they rated the opposition. Bush voters gave Kerry’s campaign a 5.4 average; Kerry’s gave the Bush campaign a 5.2.
There was little evidence of post-election reconciliation in the survey, which was conducted from November 4 through December 28. Kerry voters were asked whether they agreed with the statement: “Even though I voted for John Kerry, George Bush will probably be a good president in his second term.”
Only 2 percent strongly agreed and 13 percent somewhat agreed. Fifteen percent somewhat disagreed and 67 percent strongly disagreed. This was a substantially more negative result than Annenberg found from November 3 through 11. At that time, 5 percent of Kerry voters strongly agreed and 25 percent somewhat agreed. Thirteen percent somewhat disagreed and 53 percent strongly disagreed.
Nor were Kerry voters much more reconciled to the idea that their votes had been counted properly. In this survey, 53 percent of Kerry voters said they were “very confident” their votes had been accurately counted, about the same as the 53 percent who said that in the November 3-11 polling. Among Bush voters, 86 percent said they were “very confident” their votes had been counted accurately, up from 62 percent just after the election. For all voters, the figure was 70 percent
The margin of sampling error for all respondents was plus or minus one percentage point. For either Bush or Kerry voters, it was plus or minus two percentage points.
The survey also blows ABB out of the water:
Ever thought would vote for other candidate:
Bush voters 16%
Never: 84%
Kerry Voters 15%
Never: 85%
All voters 15%
Never: 84%
I don't think it should be an argument in every issue either, and certainly not for the 2006 election.
Here's another interesting poll:
(The NBC/WSJ states that 85% of the poll responders were reigistered voters who: voted 47% for Bush and 42% for Kerry; 15% were not registered, see pg 5. At some points they ask questions of registered voters only, I'm not sure how all of this impacts the results. I'm pretty sure the 31% below is Bush's base.)
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