Poll: Majority of Americans believe midterm elections were secure from hacking

A majority of Americans believe this year’s midterm elections were secure from hacking, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

The Pew Research Center found that 64 percent of Americans trusted that elections were secure, while 35 percent had little or no confidence in that statement.

That’s a rise in confidence in election security compared to another poll conducted by Pew ahead of November’s midterms, during which only 45 percent of Americans thought the elections would be secure from threats like hacking.

{mosads}Majorities of Americans also believed that local and state officials did a good job in administering the elections. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said community poll workers and local election officials did a very good job, while 55 percent gave the same marks to state election officials.

The poll also found that a majority – 61 percent – of Americans who did not vote wish they had voted during the midterms. And 76 percent of those who did vote called the process was “very easy.”

Officials initially said there were no signs of a hack on Election Day, but have warned that a cyberattack could emerge over time.

Defense Secretary James Mattis said earlier this month that Russia had interfered in the midterm elections. And the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is set to issue a report this week to the White House on whether a foreign entity interfered in the elections.

Pew conducted interviews with 10,640 American adults from Nov. 7-16. The poll has a margin of error of 1.7 percentage points.