Democratic voters confident California election is secure, Republicans less so, poll finds

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California voters are deeply divided over the trustworthiness of state elections heading into Tuesday’s primary, with most Democrats but less than half of Republicans expressing confidence in the electoral process, according to a new poll.The polarized view follows a years-long campaign by President Trump and his Republican allies to question the legitimacy of American elections, especially in California and other blue states.

It also follows robust efforts from liberal leaders, elections officials and voting rights experts to denounce Trump’s claims as baseless.Overall, registered voters in the state — which skews heavily Democratic — expressed confidence in local election officials by a 2-to-1 margin, with 65% expressing confidence and 31% expressing a lack of confidence, according to the poll released Tuesday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.However, those figures shift dramatically when sorted by political party, and even more when parsed by partisan leaning.California California’s primary election takes place on June 2.

Learn about L.A.’s city and county races and others for state offices.For example, 79% of Democratic voters expressed confidence in local officials running a secure and fair election, compared to 62% of independent voters and 42% of Republican voters, the poll found.While 82% of voters who identified as strongly liberal expressed confidence, just 38% of voters who identified as strongly conservative did so.“It’s clearly a partisan issue, and it is being promoted by the president and others who are his followers,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of Berkeley IGS polls.

“Strong conservatives and the Republicans are the least confident, and a lot of them are saying [they are] not at all confident.That’s a pretty extreme statement.”Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the S...