AUSTIN — By large margins, Texans support making sure no illegal ballots are cast and votes are accurately counted, but they also strongly back enhancing people's ability to register and vote, a new poll shows.

In a first-ever poll that tested state residents' confidence in democratic institutions, the nonpartisan Texas Lyceum found what its director called "surprising" levels of support among both Republicans and Democrats for election security measures such as the state's 2011 voter ID law but also efforts to let more eligible people vote.

While lawmakers tweaked the voter ID law two years ago to counter criticism it was racially discriminatory, it is still considered one of the strictest in the country. The poll, though, found that 81% of Texans favor it, including 72% of Democrats. The law requires voters to present one of seven government-issued photo IDs or bring utility bills, bank statements or paychecks and sign an affidavit saying they had trouble getting an accepted ID.

Requiring paper ballot backups for electronic voting machines commands support from 83% of Texans, the poll found.

But a measure to expand ballot access — automatically updating voter rolls when people move — also had support from 80% of Texans, according to the Lyceum poll.

Just more than two-thirds of Texans — 78% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans — favor letting felons vote after they have served their time, it found. And 63% say Election Day should be a national holiday, 62% favor automatically registering all eligible citizens to vote and 61% support allowing people to register at the polls on Election Day.

"This was one of the more surprising results of the survey," Lyceum poll research director Josh Blank said in a written statement.

"We tend to think of election reform as a partisan exercise — often because it is, or at least has been in recent years," he said.

"But in these results, we see a large majority of Texans embracing both measures to increase ballot security and measures to increase ballot access — which points to the possibility for large-scale reforms."

Still, letting people vote online is less popular — 43% support it. Conducting all elections by mail commands support from only 26% of respondents.

Older Texans less critical of system

The Lyceum poll found significant differences by age in whether Texans are positive about democracy. Seventy-eight percent of Texans over 65 strongly agree that democracy is the best form of government, while only 32% of Texas adults under 30 share that belief.

"Young Texans appear primed to listen to the discussion among many of the current Democratic primary candidates about the structure of our government and its relationship to the citizen," Blank said. "They're a major constituency of the Democratic Party, and a growing share of the Texas population. These poll results show that they're unlikely to shy away from potentially big, transformative ideas in 2020."

University of Texas government professor Daron Shaw, who helped oversee the Lyceum poll, said that while adults between 18 and 29 lean slightly more to the Democratic Party than the country as a whole, "they're not particularly partisan. They're just sort of driven by a belief that the system is kind of corrupt and is not working for them."

Texas Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to view attempts by Russia or other foreign governments to influence the U.S. presidential elections as a major problem — 69% to 28%.

"A lot of it is just a certain post-2016 reaction to what they think went on in that election," Shaw said. "It is a weird world where Republicans are less worried about the Russians than the Democrats are."

As a whole, state residents see domestic forces or tendencies as a greater threat to democracy than foreign countries, 62% to 24%.

Internal threats: Big money, the news media

Among internal ills, more Texans — 28% — say money in politics is the greatest threat to American democracy than six others. The news media came in second (19%), followed by uninformed voters (15%), poorly prepared candidates (14%), people who don't vote (9%), the size of the federal government (6%) and the two-party system (5%).

"Make no mistake: Texans are concerned about foreign actors spreading misinformation and possibly hacking into county or statewide election systems," Shaw said. "But they see other threats as greater and more immediate."

The poll of 1,200 Texas adults was conducted Aug. 16 to Aug. 25. Of the respondents, 1,000 were reached on landlines and cell phones, while an additional 200 people in "hard to reach populations" were surveyed online. Poll-takers confirmed the 200 aren't registered to vote.

The margin of error was plus or minus 2.83 percentage points.

On Thursday, Lyceum officials will release additional poll findings. Those issues will cover the 2020 Democratic presidential contest; the job-approval ratings of President Donald Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick; and Texans' economic outlook.

CORRECTION, 3:50 p.m., Sept. 4, 2019: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said 57% of Republicans favor letting felons who have served their time vote. Fifty-six% did.