McConnell says election fraud rare, threats to democracy not a problem

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says election fraud is rare but "happens occasionally" and that threats to democracy, an important issue to U.S. voters in a recent survey, are not a pressing issue.

The chamber's top Republican made the remarks a day after the release Sunday of an NBC News poll that show the plurality of respondents, 21%, ranked "threats to democracy" as the most important issue facing the country.

"I do think it’s an important issue. There were those who were trying to prevent the orderly transfer of power for the first time in American history and that was not good," said McConnell, referring to the post-2020 presidential election results.

The Kentucky lawmaker also said he doesn't believe democracy is in immediate danger because efforts to alter the results of the election were "thwarted," according to NBC. 

"I guess that’s had some impact on the poll," he said. "But look, I think we have a very solid democracy. I don’t think of the things that we need to worry about, I wouldn’t be worried about that one."

Although voting rights and election integrity were not part of August's NBC poll, it was the third-most concerning issue to voters in a survey several months ago by the news outlet.

McConnell said Monday there is "very little election fraud" but it "happens occasionally." 

The new NBC poll was conducted from Aug. 12-16 with 1,000 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.