New polling released today shows strong bipartisan support for updating the Electoral Count Act (ECA), an outdated 19th century law that has provided the framework governing the casting and counting of electoral votes for president and vice president, including Congress’ role in the process. 

Key findings from the polling include:

• Voters support updating the ECA by a 44-point margin (62% support/only 18% oppose) after receiving a brief description of the law. Majorities of voters across partisan, demographic, and geographic lines support updating the law. 
• Nearly two-thirds (63%) of voters say they would be more likely to support updating the ECA if the updated law was written and proposed by Democratic and Republican members of Congress. 
• Voters strongly support limiting Congress’s ability to overrule state election results. By a 33-point margin, voters feel there should be only a narrow set of circumstances that allow Congress to reject certified state election results. Voters believe it should be difficult for Congress to “throw out” results (+29 difficult). 
• Most Americans are concerned about a party trying to overrule the results of an upcoming presidential election. A majority—58% of those polled—think it’s likely a party will try to overturn the presidential election results in an upcoming election. 

The full pollster overview memo is available here.

These findings are based on the results of a nationwide online survey conducted by GS Strategy Group and ALG Research from September 20-26, 2021, among N=1,012 registered voters (912N nationwide + 100N oversample of Republicans). The confidence interval for the main sample is +/- 3.2% at the 95% level of confidence. The confidence interval for subgroups varies and is higher.

The poll was commissioned by Campaign Legal Center, Issue One, Protect Democracy, and Represent.Us

Read more about the results in the Washington Examiner (Oct. 26, 2021).

For more information about Protect Democracy’s work on defending free and fair elections, and updating the Electoral Count Act, click here.