Are you looking forward to election season, particularly the primaries? The media is clearly excited about it, but typical Americans don’t seem to be. This is particularly true of GOP primary voters according to a new poll from the Associated Press and NORC. Many do not believe that the votes will be tallied accurately or fairly. And an increasing number of people are pessimistic about the future of both the Republican and Democrat parties in general. Having people lose faith in the results of elections is a significant sign of decline in a Democracy, but the parties largely have themselves to blame.

With the GOP primary process just about to start, many Republicans aren’t certain that votes will be counted correctly in their presidential primary contest, amid widespread pessimism about the future of both the Democratic and Republican parties, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

About one-third of Republicans say they have a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that votes in the upcoming Republican primary elections and caucuses will be counted correctly. About three in 10 Republicans report a “moderate” amount of confidence, and 32% say they have “only a little” or “none at all.” In contrast, 72% of Democrats have high confidence their party will count votes accurately in its primary contests. Democrats are also slightly more likely than Republicans to have a high level of confidence in the Republican Party’s vote count being accurate.

Those are some fairly dismal numbers on the Republican side. Even voters who say they have a “moderate” amount of confidence in the integrity of the elections aren’t really casting a vote of confidence. That’s the equivalent of saying that it’s possible that the elections aren’t rigged, but they can’t be sure. So there were really only 33% who expressed “a great deal” or at least “quite a bit” of confidence.

It’s somewhat ironic that the Democrats have more faith in the integrity of the elections since they’re the ones who seem to get caught cheating the most often. Look no further than the Bridgeport, Connecticut mayoral election or that other race in Mississippi. Perhaps this isn’t so much a case of Democrats believing that the elections are conducted fairly as it is an expression of confidence that they will win anyway because the system appears to be rigged in their favor.

When you add in the independents, the picture doesn’t look all that much better. Fewer than half of all voters have “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the 2024 presidential election will be counted accurately. Many of the voters interviewed for this survey, particularly Trump supporters, said that the 2020 election was rigged and they have little confidence that things will go any better next time.

Faith in the two major political parties has declined apace. When asked if the parties have a fair process for selecting a presidential nominee, one-quarter of voters said they had “only a little confidence” or “none at all.” That number included 25% of self-identified Republicans and just 19% of Democrats. Of course, this question covers a broader range of potential problems than simple election fraud. It addresses the entire primary process and how it is managed. Perhaps we shouldn’t be all that surprised that the Democrats rate it the worst. They are, after all, the party that reserves the right for its superdelegates to toss out the choice of the people at the convention and replace them with someone else.

I will readily admit that the primary process certainly has its problems. But it’s the system we have for better or worse and I’ve yet to hear any serious suggestions of ways to significantly improve it. We could probably do a better job if we had the states vote in five rotating groups of ten states. But even then, in a nation of this size, candidates will always need massive amounts of money to gain the name recognition and earned media required to put them over the top. And with all of that money comes significant problems. So at least for now, we appear to be stuck with what we have.