Plutzer Eric, Adler Gary, Sager Rebecca, Coley Jonathan S, Mayrl Damon
Department of Political Science, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
Department of Sociology, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Jun 25;20(6):e0324794. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0324794. eCollection 2025.
The U.S. public's confidence in elections is intensively studied in the last decade but little is known about election confidence among locally elected officials, whose roles and community status may influence public opinion. Using a nationally representative survey of local election officials, we compare election confidence among local elected officials with that of the general public. Local elected officials are more likely to trust both local and national elections. We theorize factors that affect local officials' trust in elections, including partisan context, state leadership election denial levels, and political ambition. We show how social trust, partisan identity, and ambition significantly influence local officials' confidence that local and national results reflect the intention of voters. We conclude by showing how the relative lack of intensive partisan polarization among local elected officials is especially important at keeping election distrust low among local officials.
在过去十年里，美国公众对选举的信心得到了深入研究，但对于地方民选官员的选举信心却知之甚少，而这些官员的角色和社区地位可能会影响公众舆论。通过对地方选举官员进行全国代表性调查，我们将地方民选官员的选举信心与普通公众的选举信心进行了比较。地方民选官员更有可能信任地方和全国选举。我们对影响地方官员对选举信任的因素进行了理论分析，包括党派背景、州领导对选举结果的否认程度以及政治抱负。我们展示了社会信任、党派身份和抱负如何显著影响地方官员对地方和全国选举结果反映选民意愿的信心。我们通过说明地方民选官员之间相对缺乏强烈的党派两极分化在保持地方官员对选举的低不信任度方面如何特别重要来得出结论。
