Most American voters (56%) believe at least one of the last two presidents was illegitimately put into office, according to a poll by Scott Rasmussen.
The survey of 1,200 registered voters, taken from March 4-6, found that just one in four respondents (26%) believed that the right person was declared the winner in each of the last two presidential elections.
This includes 26% who believed Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and 31% who believed that Donald Trump won in 2020.
In each case, just 60% of those who responded agreed that the actual winner had become president.
The rhetoric from the “losing” candidate in both elections was likely to have fed those beliefs.
Recently declassified documents showed that Clinton’s team concocted false claims of Russian interference against Trump to deflect from an FBI investigation into her mishandling of classified emails.
However, Clinton’s campaign misinformation has lingered long after it was debunked by the Mueller Report, with some top Democrats continuing to point to Russian meddling as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to undermine the most recent election.
Meanwhile, after warning for months in advance about the Left’s effort to implement questionable mail-in ballot practices under the auspices of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has consistently maintained that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen.”
Existing GOP concerns about the sanctity of the ballot-box have been compounded by congressional Democrats’ recent bad-faith efforts to push through H.R. 1—aka the For the People Act.
The bill seeks to eliminate many voter-integrity safeguards in order to make elections more “accessible” to a broader swath of the population.
That may include core Democrat constituencies such as illegal immigrants, the recently deceased, convicted felons and teenagers—all of whom would have an easier time voting under the provisions of the 800-plus page package.
H.R. 1 would automate voter registration, require states to allow same-day voter registration on Election Day and stop Republican efforts to “purge” voter rolls of alleged inconsistencies and disparities.
Twenty Republican state attorneys general signed a letter last week denouncing the controversial bill as unconstitutional. But hours later, the measure was passed by the House, with all 220 Democrats supporting and all 210 Republicans opposed.
“This monstrosity of a bill betrays the Constitution, dangerously federalizes state elections, and undermines the integrity of the ballot box,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement to Fox News.
“As a former chief election officer, and now an Attorney General, I know this would be a disaster for election integrity and confidence in the processes that have been developed over time to instill confidence in the idea of ‘one person, one vote,” he added.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
