Trust in U.S. elections is eroding. Between skepticism about redistricting, fear about immigration agents at the polls, and unproven claims about widespread election fraud, Americans are losing confidence in the accuracy and security of their elections.
But many local election authorities say their effort to address misinformation and reassure voters is beginning to turn the tide, as they’ve seen less voter concern about election security.
Voter confidence in accurate vote counts dropped 17% across party lines in about a year, according to two nationwide polls from the Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections at the University of California San Diego. One poll was conducted just after the 2024 presidential election, the other in late 2025, in collaboration with UCSD’s Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research.
Voters had different reasons for why they are skeptical about the midterms — and those reasons broke across party lines, with more Republicans naming redistricting as a concern and Democrats more worried about the presence of immigration agents at the polls.
Although 60% of respondents indicated they did have confidence in the midterms, the survey paints a bleak picture ahead of this fall. And it was followed by headlines about the Supreme Court’s ruling weakening a key racial redistricting provision in the Voting Rights Act, the Department of Justice suing states for access to voter records and a report finding a Trump appointee encouraged the DOJ raid of election offices in Fulton County, Georgia.
This is all on the heels of President Donald Trump’s repeated, but disproven, claims of widespread voter fraud and falsified 2020 election results. Now, he’s staffed his federal administration with officials who echoed his claims in 2020 and refuse to walk them back, doubling down in some cases.
For one, Kash Patel, the embattled director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, is overseeing the investigation that led to the Fulton County raid and a subpoena of Maricopa County, Arizona, records. Just last week, the administration demanded names of election officials who worked in the county during the 2020 elections.
Much like Pam Bondi, the former director of the Justice Department, Patel would not state that Joe Biden won the 2020 election in his confirmation hearing.
The Trump administration’s efforts to establish a narrative of fraud, lies and vote stealing during Biden’s presidency are not for nothing. As the UCSD poll shows, Americans of both parties have begun to doubt if they can trust upcoming elections. It makes for a tense environment as the country rockets towards the 2026 midterms and as rumors swirl around potential 2028 presidential nominees.
But across the country, and within Illinois, election authorities of both political parties say American elections are, and will stay, fair and secure. While county clerks report having an impact on their local constituencies, the disparate nature of U.S. elections — while widely considered a strength — make communicating to a broader audience a greater challenge.
Local election authority
Authority over administering elections, by federal law, is given to the states. In Illinois, elections are administered either by the 102 county clerks or the six municipal election commissions. The Illinois State Board of Elections works with these local election authorities in an advisory capacity.
Every state has differing laws on election administration, and each Illinois county clerk conducts their elections a little differently. The needs and wishes of the voting population of Chicago and suburban Cook County, for example, are much different than those of Tazewell or Sangamon County.
That environment makes things complicated, but local authority is part of the strength of Illinois elections, according to Republican Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman.
“(Individuals) have the ability to go in and see how their elections are being handled in their jurisdiction,” Ackerman said. “There isn’t some appointed bureaucrat that is running this operation. It’s an individual they have a direct impact of putting into office. That’s something that gives them, should give them, more faith if they don’t like the way things are being done.”
Capitol News Illinois spoke with county clerks from across the state to find out more about what they do to administer a secure election and maintain voter confidence.
Ackerman said many sources track deteriorating trust in elections back to 2020, but he believes it really started in 2016, the same year foreign hackers breached election databases in Illinois and Arizona.
The hackers were able to steal some voters’ information that was already publicly available. But while they accessed the voter roll, they could not access any tabulators —machines that scan each ballot and count the votes — because they are not connected to outside internet and can’t be hacked.
Still, claims of election fraud dominated the 2016 campaign trail, with Trump frequently deriding a system he called “rigged.” Post-election, Green Party candidate Jill Stein launched a recount effort for the presidential race, backed by losing Democrat Hillary Clinton, as Trump’s shock election to the presidency shook voter confidence for some.
“What we saw in 2016 at the federal level were social media campaigns that were aimed at all, not just one particular voting group,” said Matt Dietrich, public information officer at the Illinois State Board of Elections. “They were aimed at everyone, and they were basically there to sow discord among voters, to create conflict.”
Recalling an interview he gave in 2018, as election authorities were preparing for the 2020 campaign and election season, Dietrich remembered saying it’s “dangerous” to introduce the question of fraud because it’s hard to disprove.
“For years, we wouldn’t have dreamed that that American voters would be claiming that there is widespread voter fraud on a nationwide basis,” Dietrich said.
But Dietrich, who handles Freedom of Information Act requests for the state elections board, said he’s also seen a substantial decrease in requests for files about election protocol and security.
“I’m optimistic that they are coming around to what we had been saying all along, which was, you never doubted this before,” Dietrich said. But he warned that county clerks must remain vigilant against future misinformation campaigns.
“Completely unsubstantiated charges of fraud can’t draw the spotlight and increase the volume to such an extent that the true message has, you know, that the facts have a hard time getting out,” Dietrich said.
Combating misinformation
Prior to 2020, election authorities did not have to be as proactive about misinformation, but the 2016 and 2020 elections brought both political parties to “slinging mud and dirt,” Ackerman said.
“I can’t stress enough we’re not seeing this from one political party,” Ackerman said. “Both are just as guilty of committing the sin of throwing misinformation into the media circus, and that’s part of the problem.”
To combat misinformation, some clerks use social media to run voter education campaigns, while others use mailing campaigns to inform voters. It all depends on the comfort level of the clerk and what makes sense for their county, Ackerman said. But the campaign against misinformation is bipartisan, across the board.
“It matters for us to be able to work together across party lines,” Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, a Democrat, said. “All of my visits to other states and cities and conferences, I have found that by and large, the Democrats and Republicans are trying to do the same thing. We’re trying to run a fair, free and accessible election.”
Ammons said groups like the nonpartisan Illinois Association of County Clerks and Recorders, which Ackerman is a vocal member of, are also helpful in getting messaging out.
“We’ve always done everything in an open, transparent way of inviting everybody to the table, because then it’s passing the information forward,” Ackerman said. “There isn’t a political bit to that. It’s information I want spread.”
Officials at the Illinois State Board of Elections, Illinois State Police and Department of Homeland Security also monitor social media for misinformation campaigns and security threats and work with local officials to address those.
“Since about 2018 we have adopted a proactive approach of when we see it, engaging it in the public, trying to remove it as quickly as possible, rather than allowing it to fester and grow,” Ackerman said.
Sangamon County Clerk Don Gray, also a Republican, has been a county clerk for nearly twelve years and is running for his fourth term, while Ackerman is running for his third.
The key to maintaining voter trust is transparency, the clerks agreed.
“We’re only as strong as the accuracy and the belief of the public that the result is clear and that it can be trusted,” Gray said.
Maintaining faith through transparency
Franklin County Clerk Paris Dunk, a Republican, said his office approaches elections with a simple goal: making sure people trust the process and understand how it works. Dunk said that staff members spend every day updating voter rolls through address confirmations, state data checks and repeated mailings.
National narratives in the wake of the 2020 election fueled skepticism in voter integrity, he said, but some of that has quieted, which he credits to transparency. He said he encourages anyone with concerns to “come in and be a part of the process” and observe everything from machine testing to vote tabulation. The use of paper ballots is one of the county’s strongest safeguards because “it’s an easy audit,” he said.
Ammons agreed that 2020 brought an onslaught of skepticism, much of it coming from : “We saw just so much more of that, and that, I think, has grown and has caused some voters to be even more hesitant or cautious than they were before.”
But letting the public witness and experience how an election is operated and what the procedural policy is goes a long way in increasing trust and confidence, Gray said.
“I think the chief responsibility of the election authority is to be that advocate of exposing how we operate, and that goes a great distance in giving people real, firm confidence,” Gray said. “I spend a lot of time analyzing that (disinformation) and refuting what’s being said that’s disturbing people.”
But when federal officials claim there is widespread fraud, county clerks must work with them as well as voters to maintain faith in the process.
“First we need to address the federal officials to make sure that they understand why their information is inaccurate,” Ackerman said. “Then we need to target also our public to make sure they have their questions answered.”
Some efforts for transparency are required by law, like public equipment tests. But some clerks also go out of their way to invite the public and members of both parties to engage. It’s all about opening up the process, Ackerman said.
“We invite youth groups. We invite civic organizations. Anybody who wants to have a tour of our equipment,” Ackerman said. “We’ve really led the way in many innovations in being transparent, opening up our required testing of our equipment and our required public events, putting them online, live streaming them so that the public can observe them from the comfort of their home.”
Ammons said he has a hard time getting voters to show up to in-person, transparency-oriented events like the equipment tests. But he sends out a newsletter, updates the county website regularly and works with the media to get communications out.
Ackerman also said bipartisanship plays a big role among county clerks. In January, for example, the county clerks association held a joint news conference to inform media and voters about a recent postmarking change that would affect mail-in ballots.
“I’m not talking just through a Republican audience or a Democrat audience, but to the public as a whole,” Ackerman said. “We were happy to do those joint press conferences where it’s the same message going out from all of us in a unified voice. I think the public has some comfort with that.”
In 2023, county clerks also held a series of news conferences, led by Ackerman, to get ahead of election-related misinformation and claims of fraud, Dietrich said.
“The message among those local election authorities … was that, look, we are — we live in your towns. Our kids go to the same schools, you know us. If you have questions, or if you have any doubts about the security and integrity of the election system, come to us and let us explain it to you,” Dietrich said.
Some misinformation comes from confusion about jurisdictions’ different rules, Ackerman said. Voters have concerns about election-related events in Georgia or California that don’t apply in Illinois because the states have contradictory election laws. That also makes having a national conversation about election security harder, he said.
Gray said he hears a lot of security-related concerns from voters, many about noncitizen participation, foreign involvement, engagement and participation.
“The more pinnacle pieces that I hear most often, centered in and around of, how are you ensuring to make sure that only those that are qualified are actually taking part in our elections?” Gray said.
Election authorities follow strict security protocols to ensure all ballots are valid. In recent years, they have begun more voter outreach to ensure voters know and have faith in those protocols — but clerks say real fraud is rare.
In his 12 years of being a county clerk, Gray said he’s never really seen any fraud and that most incorrect results are from errors like improper ballot marking.
“We’re human, and elections are processed by people. Errors do happen, but that doesn’t mean there’s this huge systemic effort of fraud to defraud an election,” Gray said.
Firsthand experience
Gray and Ammons recommend voters serve as election judges to see the process for themselves.
“You’ll see the controls. You’ll see the attention to detail of vetting accuracy, to ensuring accountability to our electoral system,” Gray said.
On March 17, during Illinois’s primary Election Day, Capitol News Illinois spoke to election judges at one Sangamon County polling place to find out more about what they do.
The judges we spoke to said after they served as an election judge, they felt more informed and comfortable with the process.
“Everybody, whether you’re Democrat or Republican, you’re getting both voices together and making sure things are done properly,” said Jennifer Crowder, a local resident.
For Crowder, serving as an election judge for the past five elections has also boosted her and her family’s involvement.
“I see it (voting) as a very critical part of who we are,” Crowder said.
Local high school senior Josephine Oke signed up to be an election judge through her high school, along with some of her friends. With permission from her guidance counselor and parents, she was approved for the position.
“The idea of actively participating in, like, local elections as an election judge, that really drew me in because I like being involved in my community,” Oke said. This was her first year serving as an election judge and voting in an election.
To be an election judge, any resident can apply through their local county clerk. First-time judges attend an in-person course to learn the responsibilities of an election judge, while those who’ve done it previously can complete the course online.
John Brim, another Sangamon County resident, said he’s served as an election judge on and off since 1980.
“Every election is a learning experience. You learn different things, because sometimes they may tweak some of the procedures, but they’re for the better,” Brim said.
On Election Day morning, election judges open the tabulators and check that they’re working. They do this by running a blank tape through the machine to ensure there are no previous votes cast and that the ballot is correct.
Ballots seem simple, but one county can have hundreds of different ballots for one election, Gray said. For example, primary elections have a Democrat, a Republican and a nonpartisan ballot that includes any local or statewide ballot measures, like constitutional amendments. And within one county, there can be several municipal elections with dozens of small, local districts, so the different ballot combinations multiply quickly.
At the end of the day, the judges run the tape again, count and sort the ballots by precinct, and turn in the number of filled-out ballots and however many are left over. The number of distributed ballots is strictly monitored to prevent voting multiple times, Dietrich said.
Oke described the different tasks election judges might do when a voter comes into their polling place.
“The first role that’s more identification, like, what’s your name, your address, what political party you’re affiliated with, so they can get their ballot,” Oke said. “Then the second one is verifying, you know, just checking signatures, seeing everything matches up. … And then you give them the ballot type that they need, and then they fill it out, and that’s it.”
These judges arrived at the polling place by 5 a.m. to set up for the polls to open at 6 a.m. They remained there until after the polls closed at 7 p.m., leaving only when the tabulating machines had been counted and put away.
“You’re helping the process, and you’re making sure that things are done right,” Brim said. “I mean, you feel like you’re accomplishing something for the country.”
Physical security
For county clerks, election administration requires physical security and cybersecurity. For the former, clerks must ensure proper maintenance and custody of voting equipment, ballots and voter rolls.
“In advance, there’s a lot that we have to be focused in on, in terms of assuring that our equipment is properly maintained, that it’s properly calibrated, that ballots are properly created and devised,” Gray said. “We have to ensure that all of those work properly, that they read properly, and that the manner in which voters cast those ballots is an accurate reflection of the election.”
Clerks hold the tests before every election to show the public that the tabulators work correctly. But they also have a strict chain of custody protocol to protect from physical tampering. Every distributed ballot must be accounted for, and the machines are sealed until the ballots are removed for counting by the poll workers.
Williamson County Clerk Amanda Barnes, who has worked in the clerk’s office for nearly 30 years, said election security in Williamson County relies heavily on testing, paper ballots and public transparency.
Barnes, a Republican who was elected county clerk in 2013, said her office begins preparing “months prior to an election,” testing voting machines, ballots and software before every election, then conducting a post-election “re-tabulation” audit using randomly selected precincts assigned by the state.
She said one of the biggest misconceptions voters have is that voting is entirely electronic, explaining that “there is a paper trail” for every vote cast in the county because even touchscreen machines produce paper ballots that can be audited if questions arise. Barnes also pushed back on fears about hacked voting machines.
“The program and the machines themselves are not hooked up to the internet,” she said. Rather, they are “just plugged into an outlet for electricity, so nothing is getting in that way.”
Most of the work outside of election season is just maintaining the voter registration roll. The state elections board maintains a statewide voter roll, but it’s updated daily only by the county clerks who add and remove voter registrations, Ackerman said. That was a concern he’s heard from some voters.
“I think there’s a lot of hysteria about dead people voting, illegal aliens voting,” said Dunk, who was appointed to the clerk position in December 2025 after spending six years working in the county’s election office. “I would say that’s just not something that we see, not in this county anyway. We put our voter registration through rigorous trials.”
While Illinois does not require voter ID at the polls, Dunk said he has “definitely become more pro” voter identification over time and believes “having something” such as a voter ID card would make many residents feel more secure about elections.
He also voiced frustration with Illinois’ permanent vote-by-mail system, saying he would “like to see permanent vote by mail completely revert back to just the by-request basis.” He said the current system results in a significant amount of returned mail because people forget to update their addresses during moves.
At the urging of the president, whose claims of voter fraud are centered around noncitizen voting, members of Congress introduced the SAVE America Act, which would tighten voter ID guidelines and exercise more federal control over voter rolls. Its future is uncertain.
“I’ve always been very fundamentally comfortable on how we’re operating today,” Gray said of the act. “But if it’s not enough to give confidence to the public, and they demand more controls and more vetting and more transparency in the process, I’m certainly supportive of that too, because again, you’re always subject to the trust and confidence of the public.”
Election judges verify voter registration at polling places on Election Day by checking an individual’s signature against one they have on file. When registering to vote, individuals must show two forms of valid identification, one of which with their current address.
Voter registration is very accessible in Illinois, Dietrich said. Most voters now register online or when they apply for or renew their driver’s license.
The SAVE America Act would require voters to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote and to show photo ID when they vote in-person or request an absentee ballot.
Voting rights advocates say the bill could disenfranchise millions who don’t have easy access to proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate. The act passed the House in February but stalled in the Senate.
Cybersecurity
County clerks also take charge of cybersecurity, working closely with local, state and federal law enforcement. Illinois is at the forefront of cybersecurity, Gray said, after the 2016 breach.
To protect tabulation machines from outside tampering, the machines have firewall protection systems, no connection to outside internet, strict chain of custody protocol and data redundancies.
“The machines run tapes and data internally to give the cumulative report. Every ballot is kept, every ballot that’s been cast by a voter and how it’s been marked is represented to each machine,” Gray said. “We go through audits and we show the public that how ballots are being marked as a direct reflection to how the machines are reading them.”
Another one of the strengths of Illinois conducting elections locally is if a bad actor was able to identify a vulnerability in one county, they wouldn’t find the same one in every county, which makes it nearly impossible to rig the system, Ackerman said.
After the 2016 breach, Illinois used a federal grant to hire cybersecurity specialists to improve election security and started the Illinois Cyber Navigator Program to ensure every county has access to cybersecurity communication and training.
Federal grant funding for elections infrastructure is primarily awarded by the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission, but the funds themselves are controlled by Congress. Between 2019 and 2021, annual funding was on average $400 million. In 2022 and 2023 it dropped to $75 million, then $55 million in 2024 and $15 million in 2025, according to a news release from Ackerman.
In January, Capitol News Illinois spoke with Ackerman after he led a bipartisan delegation of Illinois county clerks to Washington, D.C. last fall and again in April 2026 to advocate for election infrastructure funding.
Federal funding may vary, but the cost of administering an election stays the same, Ackerman said. When funding is so volatile, it’s difficult to plan and follow through on big purchases like equipment upgrades.
Lake County Clerk Anthony Vega, a Democrat, is also heavily involved with the clerk’s association and attended these trips to call for greater funding: “Protecting our democracy requires partnership, and our voters deserve nothing less,” he said in an April news release.
“We were kind of pointing out that just within the state of Illinois, the cost of an election in just a couple counties could equal that full $15 million,” Ackerman said. “How are you really funding elections nationwide when that’s the total amount of a couple counties added together, let alone all the other states?”
The delegation met with bipartisan members of Congress and their staff and said the April trip was successful.
“We all have the same struggles, the same issues, so it was a great opportunity to network, to talk, to see what best practices are being done elsewhere that we can bring back and utilize within our jurisdictions,” Ackerman said.
The Trump administration has been less direct in communication with election authorities, but every administration has different priorities, so it’s all about adapting, Ackerman said.
At the end of the day, election authorities’ goal is to assure voters that elections are secure: “I don’t want voters to think that voting is something that is complicated. It’s not and it never has been,” Dietrich said.
Capitol News Illinois reporter Molly Parker contributed reporting to this story.
This article was produced through the Healing Illinois: Democracy Lives Here Reporting Project with the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub at Northwestern University. Healing Illinois — an Illinois Department of Human Services initiative managed with the Field Foundation — supports storytelling and community collaborations to address racial and systemic inequities across the state.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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May 11, 2026 at 06:02AM
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