Apprehension among voters significant days ahead of 2024 Election
Nov 1, 2024, 10:12 PM | Updated: 10:22 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — Four days before election night, voters’ apprehension remained elevated, and a longtime political observer said Friday that national anxiety about an election was as high as he’d seen in his lifetime.
“I think there’s more anxiety for this presidential election, this national election than in my lifetime—since World War II,” said Tim Chambless, associate professor of political science at the University of Utah. “The American people, the voters—yes, they have anxiety.”
As polls continued to show a tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, concerns ranged over several issues as KSL TV interviewed voters in downtown Salt Lake City Friday.
Brooke Klem said she hoped votes would be counted properly.
“The validity of how they count the voting—I mean, mail-in ballots,” Klem said. “In some places, you don’t need an ID in certain states, and where I live, you do, and so it’s like there’s no standard of how you vote and how you count the votes.”
Others said they worried divisiveness would intensify.
“It seems like there’s just so much nastiness going on around us,” Patty Jolley said.
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Her husband, Von Jolley, said the “negativity” on both sides has been “amazingly difficult to handle.” Another voter, Elijah Brisbie, acknowledged that many people would likely not be happy with the election result, no matter what it was.
Chambless said he wouldn’t be surprised if the outcome of the race was not decided until well after election night, similar to what happened four years ago.
“Because we had 61 different lawsuits, we were counting and recounting the ballots, and so as a result (we had) a delay of five days. This could be longer,” Chambless said.
The political observer offered some words of comfort to concerned voters.
“Have faith in our system,” Chambless said. “We survived the Civil War, we survived Nixon Watergate—we can survive this.”
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