A majority of respondents across the country believe it is time to eliminate the Electoral College. As the tenth anniversary of the 2000 United States presidential election approaches, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found that a large proportion of Americans think the results did not reflect the will of the [...]
As the tenth anniversary of the 2000 United States presidential election approaches, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found that a large proportion of Americans think the results did not reflect the will of the majority.
Republican Party nominee George W. Bush won the presidential election in 2000, defeating Democratic Party contender Al Gore in a ballot marred with controversy.
In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,013 American adults, 67 per cent of respondents who voted in the 2000 presidential election say they are confident that their vote was counted correctly at the time. However, a third of 2000 voters (33%) have little or no confidence in the way their ballot was tallied.
While 45 per cent of Americans believe the 2000 presidential election was stolen from Gore, 40 per cent disagree with this notion.
Respondents are also split on whether Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential bid affected Gore’s chances to win the election. Thirty-five per cent of respondents say Gore would have won the presidency if Nader had abstained from running—the same proportion of respondents (35%) disagrees with this claim.
Four-in-ten Americans (41%) say that, looking back, Gore would have been a better president than Bush—including 36 per cent of Independents. Conversely, 28 per cent of respondents think the opposite, and say that Gore would have been worse than Bush.
Machines and the Electoral College
A large proportion of Americans (64%) is in favor of eliminating the concept of the Electoral College, saying that whoever gets the most votes at the national level should become the country’s president.
On the question of whether vote counting should be left to humans or machines, 32 per cent of Americans say they are more comfortable with human hands counting the ballots, whereas most people (52%) prefer the automated system.
Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)
Mario Canseco, Vice President, Public Affairs
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@angus-reid.com
Methodology: From August 1 to August 2, 2010, Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey among 1,013 American adults who are Springboard America panelists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1%. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of the United States. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.
