(KSTP) — More than 919,000 Minnesotans have already voted since early voting began on September 20th. Right now, that’s about 600,000 fewer than during the 2020 election amid the COVID pandemic, but more than double the 2016 figure.

With all those early ballots already cast, how confident are Minnesotans that the ballots are safe and will be counted in an accurate and timely manner?

According to our final KSTP-TV/SurveyUSA pre-election poll, 47 percent have a “great deal” of confidence in a safe election, and another 29 percent have some confidence. Fourteen percent have little confidence and six percent have no confidence at all.

Carleton College political analyst Steven Schier says the fact that 76 percent have “very high” or “some” confidence in election security is encouraging. So far, Minnesotans are confident in their election system, and that will likely produce less controversy on Election Day,” Schier told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS after reviewing our poll results.

However, questions have been raised several times this fall about ballot boxes being left unattended at Edina City Hall and several counties that had inaccurate ballots that needed to be corrected. That seems to have hurt Republicans’ confidence more than Democrats or independents.

According to our poll, only 25 percent of Republicans have confidence in election security, compared to 69 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of independents. “There are questions about the administration of the election,” says Schier, “but Minnesotans generally have a higher level of trust in government than Americans in general, and this is an example of that.”

Minnesotans are generally less confident in a peaceful transfer of power, regardless of who wins the presidential election. Only 46% say they are confident there will be a peaceful transition and 40% say they are not confident. However, it is one of the few areas all three groups are close to agreeing on an issue. Forty-seven percent of Republicans, 46% of Democrats and 47% of independents are confident of a peaceful transition.

We also asked Minnesota voters about media coverage of the presidential candidates. Thirty-two percent of respondents say it was fair to both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, while 33 percent say it was unfair to Trump. Another 12 percent say the coverage has been unfair to Harris and 10 percent say it’s unfair to both.

“A lot of Minnesotans think the media has been unfair to Donald Trump,” says Schier. “This also reflects national surveys that indicate this. But you also have to remember that the media world is really fragmented now and mainstream media doesn’t have the control over messaging that it did 20 years ago.”

SurveyUSA surveyed 900 adults in the state of Minnesota from 10/24/24 to 10/28/24. Among adults, 801 were identified as registered to vote; of registered voters, 728 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the November general election and were asked the substantive questions that follow. This research was conducted online using a non-probability sample of online adults randomly selected by Lucid Holdings LLC in New Orleans. The combined pool of survey respondents was weighted by US Census ACS targets for sex, age, race, education, and home ownership and for the 2020 recall presidential vote.