2008 Year in Review

High School Voters Surveyed

Prior to Election Day, Thecity1.com sent out a survey to students in Morrison High School who were registered to vote. As new voters, the survey asked their opinions on this year’s presidential election.

We received 15% of the surveys back, which leads to the thought that maybe these young voters that received the surveys weren’t very interested in this year’s election. Since their identities were anonymous, there shouldn’t have been the worry that their opinions would be shared with their names. Maybe some survey recipients just didn’t have the time to fill it out, or tossed it aside and forgot or students just aren’t interested in politics or in voting this year, thinking that their vote doesn’t matter. But, from those that did fill out the survey, data was collected, and that information will be shared with you.

One of the first questions listed on the survey was asking the gender. Out of those who filled it out and were registered to vote, one third were female and two thirds were male. When asked how much they knew about the candidates in this years election, two thirds of the registered voters knew enough information to decide who they wanted to vote for, while one third hadn’t followed the election that much. About 67% said that they gathered their information on the election from their family (one out of the three having family as their only source of information). TV was also a source of information for two-thirds of these newly registered voters. 100% of these respondents said on a scale of one to four that they were quite interested about the election (picking “three” as the answer across all the surveys recorded).

It might be interesting to know that the majority of the surveys stated that they were undecided in their political status. When asked if they could only vote for president (not both president and vice president), two- thirds claimed they would vote for John McCain while one- third said they would vote for Barack Obama. On the other hand, when asked if they could only vote for vice-president, two-thirds of the survey takers said they would vote for Joe Biden, while one-third claimed they would vote for Sarah Palin.

There were many factors that played a role into the decision making of choosing a candidate, but 67% answered that how the candidate handled himself played a part in their decision. Also among the factors associated with their decisions were the debates, experience, policies, family, vice presidential pick and age. None of the survey respondents picked ethnicity as one of the contributing factors in their decision. Another factor that also wasn’t picked was the candidate’s ads, which may be surprising due to how many ads and how much money the candidates spent on television advertisements to get viewers to vote for them.

In light of the struggling economy, 100% of these High School students thought that the biggest issue effecting this election is the economy. Hopefully, the worries and fears the American public have about the economy can be mended, since it is not just an issue for middle aged or older American citizens anymore, but is effecting even the youngest of voters, and perhaps even those younger than that.

We would like to thank every student who filled out and returned the survey to us. Your time and opinions were greatly appreciated. Thank you to Morrison High School for taking the time to send the surveys out and giving us the permission to do so. We would also like to thank everyone who voted in this election.

by  Editor, theCity1.com
November 5, 2008