Election Follow Up

After evaluating some of the survey results in class the other day, I was not very surprised by what I saw. The majority of people we surveyed were college age students and were white, which is not necessarily representative of the country as a whole. We also had a lot of respondents say they are Democratic, which for this particular area was also not necessarily representative.

My group looked at the voting behavior questions and noticed a few interesting pieces. Many voters that say they are Democratic, seem to pretty consistently vote that way also. There is little change between party affiliation and candidate voted for. Also, many first time voters voted for Democratic candidates, which makes sense because we are on a college campus and most college students tend to be more Democratic or liberal in nature.

I found the reasons why people distrusted the government to be pretty amusing, as noted by the PowerPoint we saw in class. It clearly came down to a few men that had tainted the governor's position for the future. The only slightly disheartening response was "Why not?" for those that trusted the governor...

On that same note, many people that I asked to survey were not aware of the election. This wasn't all the surprising given that the midterm elections seem to have a low turnout and it is highly unlikely that college students are going to be coming out in masses to vote. It is pretty clear that most students to not see a connection between their governor or senator and the changes they want to see in IL.

On a lighter note, we got a lot of good responses from people that participated in the survey and it was really cool to see how all the answers matched up.

And the Winner is..

We finally conducted our election day exit poll and it was pretty cool. I got about 10 responses, which I was happy with seeing as most people I talked to did not even realize there was an election today. Kind of sad. However, it was one project I have done in college that I can safely say has relevance. We got to work on this project from beginning to end by creating the questions, administering the poll, and then evaluating the results.


Mostly college kids filled out my surveys with a few adults tossed in there. I think I expected to see more adults around campus since the Bone is such a convenient polling place, but I guess 11 am on a Tuesday isn't the most convenient time. I did not get the sense that many students were planning to vote, which did not surprise me. I think a lot of kids don't understand the correlation between learning about your governor or rep and how that affects your daily life. This is probably due in large part to apathy and disinterest because the knowledge isn't there. It is something that should be instilled in kids from a young age so they can go grow up challenging things and being more engaged in the world around them, rather then what the latest status is on Facebook.

Overall it was a cool experience and I really liked doing the project. Now I know a little bit about what pollsters have to go through on a routine basis. Not sure it's the job for me..

Taking Heat

A recent poll from Pew Research Center finds that Americans are pretty steady on their views of global warming. 59% of adults say there is solid evidence that the earth's temperature is getting warmer, while 34% say this is due to human activity. There are a few changes from poll results dating to 2006; the public is divided on the question of whether scientists themselves agree that the earth is warming because of human activity: 44% say scientists agree, and 44% say they do not. In July 2006, when a much higher percentage of the public said there was solid evidence of global warming, 59% said that scientists agree that global warming is caused by humans, while just 29% said scientists do not agree.

Another thing to consider is the media attention tied to global warming. Much of the general American public seems to be going back and forth between a crisis called global warming and another called climate change. Which is the correct term? Are they truly the same thing? It seems like one may be more socially acceptable than the other, that being climate change. It leaves room for some discussion beyond the earth is getting a little warmer every year.

The issue is one that seems to be on people's minds but the arrival of new evidence makes it slightly difficult to have a set opinion. So many sources throw information at us about polar bears having no where to live and the amount of rainfall in India all tied to how we fuel our cars or live our daily lives. It becomes overwhelming.

Given all the information available, I would say I believe that the climate of earth is changing. What do you expect from countries like North America and Europe that are constantly pushing limits and expanding their societies into new arenas? We tend to be a pretty wasteful society and the fact that there may not be tangible, immediate results does not put one damper on driving our gas guzzling SUV's.