Telling voters about threats to election workers surprisingly encourages California voters to want to participate in the democratic process, according to a new USC Schwarzenegger Institute-USC Price California Issues Poll.
In the past several months, there have been increasing threats and intimidation directed toward nonpartisan election administrators and poll workers. Pollsters asked California voters if they would be willing to step up and serve as a poll worker in the future. When California voters were told about threats to poll workers, 35% of voters said they wanted to sign up to become a poll worker to help administer elections in the future. Independent voters were particularly interested in signing up to be a poll worker (41% said they were willing to be a poll worker after learning of threats, higher than interest from both Democrats and Republicans).
While the threats to election workers are alarming, such messages of alarm rally California voters to want to participate more.
The USC Schwarzenegger Institute-USC Price California Issues Poll is a representative survey of registered voters who live in the state of California. It is a snapshot of California voters’ attitudes on the dates in which it was conducted. The poll is conducted by Dr. Christian Grose, Raquel Centeno, and the student participants in the USC Schwarzenegger Institute Democracy Lab. Students and colleagues at USC as part of the Democracy Lab designed and wrote questions for the poll, and developed, fielded, and implemented the poll. The survey was fielded from October 30 to November 2, 2022.