Who Trusts the Counts? American Election Confidence Across Race and Ethnicity

Trust in elections is critical to democratic legitimacy, and it has long been known that nonwhite voters are less trusting in U.S. elections. However, little is known about how trust is distributed across nonwhite groups and whether these differences are a byproduct of race or other compositional differences. To test these questions, we apply a Bayesian multilevel model approach to data from the 2024 CMPS, allowing us to independently model the confidence of Asian American, Black, Latino, and white voters. We uncover a consistent internal structure of the racial gap: low voter confidence is concentrated among Black and Latino voters, while Asian American voters are closer to white voters who are generally highest in trust. Through additional analyses, we conclude that this internal racial structure is not entirely driven by compositional differences. Our research has important implications for bolstering confidence in American elections, especially among historically marginalized groups of voters.