Nearly eight in 10 Wisconsin voters say they trust state and local election officials more than the federal government to run elections fairly, according to a new Marquette poll. That pattern shows up across party lines, even as deep disagreements persist about who is casting ballots. The numbers highlight a paradox: strong confidence in the people who run elections close to home alongside widespread suspicion about illegal voting. For Milwaukee residents, the findings reinforce why county clerks and local election staff sit at the center of efforts to restore and sustain public trust.
Marquette toplines: local officials preferred
The March 11–18 Marquette Law School Poll asked Wisconsin registered voters, “Whom do you trust more to ensure that elections in Wisconsin are conducted fairly and accurately?” and found that 79% chose Wisconsin state and local election officials while 20% chose the federal government, according to the Marquette Law School Poll. The survey interviewed 850 registered voters and includes sub-samples that allow pollsters to break the results down by partisan lean.
Local officials win broad backing
The tilt toward state and local administrators is striking: nearly every self-identified Democrat said they trusted local officials, and a majority of Republicans did as well, a split highlighted in Urban Milwaukee’s writeup of the poll. Urban Milwaukee notes that 99% of Democrats and roughly six in 10 Republicans picked state and local officials over the federal government, a pattern that suggests many voters separate everyday election administration from national political arguments about fraud.
Partisan divide on noncitizen voting
At the same time, Marquette finds a deep partisan split over whether noncitizens illegally vote. The poll shows a large share of Republicans say noncitizen voting happens “sometimes” or “often” (Marquette reports roughly 34% say “often” and 49% say “sometimes”), while about nine in 10 Democrats say it happens “never” or “hardly ever,” according to the poll release. Those perceptions help explain why debates over registration rules and proof-of-citizenship remain politically volatile in Wisconsin and beyond. The poll’s toplines and crosstabs make clear how sharply views diverge by party.
What independent research finds
That suspicion, however, runs up against a large body of research and state audits showing noncitizen voting in federal elections is vanishingly rare. A Brennan Center for Justice analysis of 23.5 million votes in 2016 identified only about 30 potential cases, and audits and reporting compiled by the Associated Press have turned up only a handful of confirmed incidents in recent years. Both note that most investigations find clerical errors or isolated mistakes rather than systemic, outcome-changing fraud.
Why the split matters here
The contrast between strong local trust and widespread worry about illegal voting helps explain why Milwaukee’s election offices spend so much time answering questions and defending routine procedures. Fact-checkers have noted that former President Donald Trump and others have repeatedly called illegal voting “rampant,” a characterization that experts say is unsupported by the evidence and that has spurred federal and state policy fights. Those policy pushes, and the litigation they have generated, could reshape registration rules and federal-state relationships around elections, making local election administrators the front line for both running and explaining the vote-counting process; FactCheck and Just Security document those developments.
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