With election day just 10 weeks away, California voters are deeply divided along party lines about whether they believe the vote will be conducted fairly.

A recent University of California, Berkeley poll found that voters have confidence in California’s elections by a nearly 2 to 1 margin — but there is a stark partisan divide. Although nearly 9 out of 10 Democrats say the vote will be conducted fairly, just over 2 in 10 Republicans feel the same way.

“Democrats are tending to trust the process, Trump supporters — Republicans — are tending to have more concerns about voter fraud, more concerns about non-citizens voting, so I think it’s just a reflection of what we’ve seen nationally,” said Christian Grose, Director of the Democracy and Fair Elections Lab at the University of Southern California.

The state has faced repeated criticism from Republicans in Washington about the length of time it takes for the state to finalize election results, suggesting that something nefarious going on.

“For days and weeks later, and for days and weeks later, they just keep finding ballots and finding ballots until the election results change,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., following California’s June primary as results were still being tabulated. “Most states have their elections resolved on election night. You look at those ballots being counted — I think it’s raised a lot of skepticism among voters when they see these wide changes days and weeks after the election.”

California Democrats have rejected any suggestion of fraud.

“Election night in California is sort of like a snapshot at halftime. And then you got about another 45% of the mail-in ballots and other ballots to be counted. So the score at halftime is different than the score at the end of the game. Doesn’t mean there’s fraud,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., told reporters just an hour after Scalise’s remarks.

During the June primary, nearly 8.5 million Californians cast their ballots by mail, while just over a million did so in person. Grose pointed to a simple reason it takes so long to count all the ballots: the postal system.

“California has taken weeks to count all of its ballots because the mail arrives seven days after election day, and it can still be counted,” he explained, referencing state law that allows ballots postmarked by election day and received up to seven days after the election to be counted. 

“The national environment, people attack the state for taking their time,” Grose continued. “Any state that has most of their ballots counted by election night is probably not counting some people’s votes if they use vote by mail.”

Restoring trust in elections is a tall order, Grose explained. California conducts post-election audits to double-check the counts for accuracy, and he suggested that more awareness about election security measures that are being taken could help restore faith in the system. 

“Trust in the electoral process is so important for actually counting ballots accurately, for getting people to accept the results of the election at the voter level, and just kind of basic democracy,” he added.

The poll also found that Democrats are overwhelmingly concerned about the possibility of federal interference in the election, while Republicans are more concerned about voter fraud and noncitizens casting a ballot — a similar divide seen at the federal level between parties as well.