Continuing Partisan Gap in Views of Fairness of the Election Process

In my Beyond the Margin of Litigation article, I noted (page 943) the growing gap between Democratic and Republican views of the fairness of the election process. Nationally, Democrats are much more skeptical about the fairness of the election process than Republicans. But the pattern was reversed in Washington state after the contested 2004 gubernatorial election, leading me to hypothesize that losers in elections are more likely to have lower opinions of the fairness of the process than winners.
The new CBS News/NY Times poll of Ohio voters asked a question about election fairness. According to this article, “Only 30 percent of Democratic poll respondents said they believed the 2004 vote count was fair and accurate, while 64 percent said it was not. (Many conspiracy-minded Democratic activists accused Mr. Blackwell, who serves as statewide supervisor of elections, of manipulating voting technology to help Mr. Bush win.) Republicans, by 89 percent to 8 percent, said the voting was fair and balanced.”
To test my hypothesis, it would be good to poll the same question in Ohio after the election, assuming Democrats do as well in Ohio as they are currently projected to do.

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