October 31, 2004
New Poll Shows Voter Doubts, Tight Race
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER
he nation is girding for Tuesday's presidential election doubtful about the integrity of the voting system, divided over the legitimacy of President Bush's election four years ago, and anxious about the future no matter who wins the contest, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
A majority of voters - and an overwhelming number of African-Americans - say they do not have a lot of confidence their own votes will be counted properly, and one-third said they expect to encounter problems when they go to vote, the poll found.
The anxiety appears to be a legacy of the disputed election of 2000: half of respondents in this latest poll said they do not think Mr. Bush legitimately won the presidency in 2000. And this campaign between Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry does not appear to have done much to burnish Americans' view of the way the country picks its president: 51 percent described it as the most negative presidential campaign in their memory.
Fittingly enough, this final pre-election Times/CBS News poll shows that the race between Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry is not much different than it was in March, when Mr. Kerry emerged as his party's presumptive nominee: The president leads Mr. Kerry by a margin of 49 to 46 percent, a statistically insignificant difference.
The finding that underscores what both sides view as a basic tenet of this election: The winner on Tuesday will be the candidate who does the best job of turning out supporters.
In this environment, there were some glimmers of hope for Mr. Bush. At a time, when pollsters watch for evidence of campaign-ending movement, Mr. Bush's job approval rating has risen to 49 percent, an improvement over his 44 percent rating two weeks ago.
The public's view of his handling of foreign policy and the war in Iraq has also edged slightly upward. And there has been a slight increase in another measure that has been ominously low for Mr. Bush, the direction the country is heading in: 43 percent now think the country is heading in the right direction, compared with 37 percent two weeks ago.
Still, 55 percent of the nation says the country is heading in the wrong direction - and the overwhelming majority of those are planning to vote for Mr. Kerry. And in this, Mr. Bush has yet to have drawn the support of more than 50 percent of likely voters; from the start of this race, Mr. Kerry's advisers have argued that Mr. Bush could not win re-election unless he breaks the 50 percent mark, in the belief that Mr. Nader will be less of a factor than he was in 2000.
The nationwide telephone poll was taken Thursday through Saturday with 920 adults, including 824 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for the entire group, and four percentage point for registered voters.
Nine percent of respondents said they still might change their minds.
The most striking finding of this election eve poll was the extent to which the country remains divided, and apprehensive about a presidential election system that has clearly been tarnished by the 2000 presidential election.
Thirty-six percent of all respondents said they thought there would be a deliberate attempt in some states to prevent blacks from voting, at a time when Democrats have charged Republicans in Florida and other states with trying to discourage turnout among African-American. There is a clear racial divide on this issue: 79 percent of blacks said they expected such a deliberate effort, compared to 28 percent of white respondents.
Over all, just one-third of respondents said they had a lot of confidence that the votes for president will be counted properly this November; 44 percent said they had some confidence, while 21 percent said they had little or no confidence. And 29 percent said they were very or somewhat concerned that they will encounter problems at the voting booth that would prevent them for voting, or block their vote from being counted.
The poll also signaled the problems either Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry will have in trying to govern such a divided nation after this election.: 52 percent said they were "scared" or "concerned" about what President Bush would do if re-elected; 54 percent said they were scared or concerned about what Mr. Kerry would do if he were elected.
