A new poll by the Associated Press (AP) news agency, in collaboration with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, has revealed that a staggering 70% of Americans are disturbed about the country’s presidential elections due in November.
Whereas AP is an international news organization, NORC is one of the largest independent social research organizations in the United States, established in 1941. It has conducted numerous social research projects involving opinion survey and other data collection, for government agencies, nonprofit agencies, and corporations, making it very credible independent research organization.
According to the details of the poll, seven in 10 people said they feel frustrated in the upcoming presidential election. Also, one-quarter of the respondents said they have hardly any confidence that their votes will be counted accurately. However, 56% respondents said they have confidence in the military.
According to the AP, the poll was conducted in mid-May, and is designed to be representative of the population of the United States. 1,060 adults participated in the poll.
The respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone, with the margin of sampling error for all respondents said to be plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
According to the results of the poll we saw, 13% of the respondents said they are proud about the impending presidential election. 37% revealed they feel hopeful, and three out of 10 people said they are already bored with the election.
On the two-party political system which is dominating in the United States, 49% believe the system has many problems, 38% said the two way system is seriously broken, while only 13% think the system works smoothly.
The relevance of the overall political and governance system including the judiciary, the executive and the legislature were also tested in the poll. 38% said they do not have any trust in the overall political system. Only 10% said they have confidence in the system. Just 15% said they have a lot of confidence in the executive branch, while 50% have “some,” but 33% do not have any confidence.
Only four percent said they still have much faith in the Washington D.C.-based Congress, as opposed to 46%, who have hardly any trust left. A modest 24% have a lot of confidence in the Supreme Court, and 17% have hardly any.
On intra-party politics, as much as 55%, including majorities from the Democratic and Republican parties said they feel totally helpless about the ongoing primaries to elect the nominees for the presidential election in November.
Eight percent of the respondents answered that they have confidence in the Republican Party, and 15% in the Democratic Party; but 29% of Democrats and 16% of Republicans revealed they do not have any confidence in their political parties.
This is not the first time a poll about the United States’ political system has showed growing resentments about the political system of the country.
In April this year, a similar joint poll conducted by the Reuters news agency and the research agency Ipsos revealed that more than half of voters in the United States believe the system to pick their president is rigged. The poll also found that 51% of voters believe the primary system is rigged against certain candidates. Over 70% said they would prefer to pick their party’s presidential nominee with a direct vote, eliminating the use of the so-called delegates as intermediaries.
Surprisingly, the survey found that 27% of voters do not even understand how the primary process works, and a staggering 44% also do not understand why delegates are involved in the process to pick a nominee to become a candidate for the presidential election.
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