Americans Concerned about Mail-In Vote Counting

Most voters are confident their mail ballots will be delivered in time for the 2026 election—but a majority are concerned about whether they will be counted accurately, according to a new Shorenstein Center report.

A national survey of 4,708 US adults conducted from September 12 through September 18, 2026 finds that mail-in voting could play a significant role in the midterms, but confidence in counting mail-in ballots is low, and concern about mail-in voting by people who are not eligible is high.

• Among likely voters, 37% said they were very likely to vote by mail or had already done so.
• 65% of respondents expressed confidence that the U.S. Postal Service would deliver mail ballots reliably in time for 2026 midterms.
• At the same time, 63% said they were concerned that mail ballots would not be counted accurately.

Despite the widespread concern about ballots not being counted, 82% of likely mail voters say they are confident their own ballot would be counted as intended.

The survey also found a sharp partisan divide in concerns about illegal voting by mail. Despite extensive research that shows how exceedingly rare voter fraud is in the United States, 81% of Republicans said illegal voting by people who are not eligible to vote happens “some” (40%) or “a lot” (41%) of the time, compared with 41% of Democrats who said it happens “some” (29%) or “a lot” (12%) of the time.

Views about the legitimacy of opposing parties’ mail ballots also differed. Thirty-four percent of Republicans said they believed at least half of Democratic mail ballots nationally would come from ineligible voters, compared with 20% who said the same about Republican ballots. Among Democrats, 22% said at least half of Republican mail ballots would come from ineligible voters, compared with 17% who said the same about Democratic ballots.

https://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Shorenstein-Voting-Info-Trends-Vote-By-Mail-Report-92426-1.pdf