Thousands of conservatives ranked election integrity as the No. 1 concern in a poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas last week, outweighing border security and inflation.
The Aug. 6 poll, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, asked some 5,000 CPAC attendees to rank three topics from greatest to least important.
Election integrity was the top issue for 61 percent of respondents.
The border wall/immigration came in second at 51 percent.
Energy independence, constitutional rights, and inflation/cost of living finished out the top five, respectively earning 31 percent, 30 percent and 25 percent as major issues.
Christian Adams is president and general counsel for the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
Christian Adams is president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which files lawsuits across the country fighting for election integrity.
Adams told The Epoch Times that while he is surprised election integrity topped the field of concerns at CPAC, public interest in the topic has risen considerably since the 2020 election.
As a result of voting irregularities, states have worked to fight against voter fraud with new legislation, he said.
“Texas and places like Florida have gotten a lot of statutes on the books,” Adams said. “So in a lot of these places, a lot of good has already happened.”
Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times he believes the issue looms large for conservatives as the midterm elections approach.
Von Spakovsky said the 2020 election, with its troubling results, seared the issue into the minds of the American populace.
“I have been preaching on this issue for a very long time,” Von Spakovsky said. “They realize that unless the right people get elected into office, those problems aren’t going to get solved.”
Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, at an immigration event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Oct. 17, 2017. Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times
Americans took elections for granted and assumed they were being operated properly, he said.
People went to sleep on election night 2020 thinking former president Donald Trump had won, only to wake up to see the election results changed dramatically overnight in favor of President Joe Biden.
Another question on the CPAC survey showed that conservatives are concerned about the threat to America from within.
Ninety one percent indicated that internal forces and the deep state are a far greater threat than external forces such as China and Russia.
People got a glimpse of how institutions have been infiltrated by far-Left ideology. During pandemic lockdowns, parents saw first-hand how the U.S. Department of Education pushed the Marxist ideology of Critical Race Theory onto their children.
Suddenly, all around the country parents began showing up at school board meetings demanding an end to the indoctrination. It upset the Left so much that they labeled them domestic terrorists, he said.
Now people are seeing Marxists propaganda everywhere. “It’s grass-roots America waking up,” Von Spakovsky said.
Chris Gwin, a 74-year-old Dallas resident who attended CPAC, said the country needs strong leaders, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who spoke out against the Communist threat to America.
“I’ve never seen anything like what’s going on in this country,” Gwin said. “This craziness in terms of the culture.”
