Will it affect turnout?****New polling shows many voters are concerned about the midterms. But prior elections show no clear link between voter concerns and fewer voters actually casting ballots.** Americans are confused and worried about elections. Will that impact turnout? ![Image 18: Voters arrive before casting their ballots at a polling location in Arlington, Va., on April 21.
"This is my 22nd year [running elections]," one Colorado election official told NPR. "Absolutely, this is the most uncertain."](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4176x2784+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F85%2F0a%2F1407e1524344bdeb07f8cf0ef17d%2Fgettyimages-2272377750.jpg) Voters arrive before casting their ballots at a polling location in Arlington, Va., on April 21. "Absolutely, this is the most uncertain." **Win McNamee/Getty Images******hide caption**** Take this summer's back and forth over President Trump's executive order to restrict mail voting, which bounced around the courts until it was ultimately halted by the Supreme Court last week.
But across the country this midterm year, local officials say they're hearing from voters confused by the process — and worried about potential federal interference in the election. A DHS email raises new questions about the Trump administration's election plans "'How is this going to work? How are you going to make sure my ballot is counted?
How am I going to get my ballot?' — I'm hearing all of these things," said Carly Koppes, a local Republican voting official in Weld County, Colo. When asked how this cycle compares to previous elections she's overseen, Koppes didn't hesitate. "This is my 22nd year [running elections]," she said.
"Absolutely, this is the most uncertain." Fewer than 50% of voters say they expect the midterms to be "free and fair elections," according to polling this month by the University of California San Diego, although a new NPR/PBS News/Marist survey did find that three-fourths of voters trust their own state and local officials to run a fair election. Four in 10 voters say they expect federal immigration enforcement agents to be present at polling places in their area, according to the UC San Diego survey, despite federal law banning armed federal troops from election sites. And after the Supreme Court ruling against Trump's mail ballot proposal, the NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found a 13 percentage point drop in voters who expect mail ballots to be delivered on time, over just the past two years.
Postal Service delivering mail-in ballots on time has fallen A separate poll, commissioned by the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, also found that 62% of respondents said they were worried "legal or political disputes over election rules could affect whether their own ballot is counted this year." All of that has cast a cloud over this election year in ways that many voters can't even fully articulate, said Stephanie Thomas, Connecticut's Democratic secretary of state. "Grandmothers approach me concerned, and I say, 'What are you concerned about?' And they say, 'I don't know. I just feel afraid that something might happen,'" Thomas told NPR, during an event this summer hosted by the Center for Election Innovation & Research.
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