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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (72515)	9/22/2004 8:31:08 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794365

The Republican version. September 22, 2004 THE POLLSTERS Dr. David Hill Hill is director of Hill Research Consultants, a Texas-based firm that has polled for Republican candidates and causes since 1988. You can find likely voters The furor over polls of “likely voters” rather than “all registered voters” is sadly becoming an extension of well-known societal debates over equality and political correctness. The critics of likely-voter models couch their objections to Gallup’s likely-voter model in methodological terms, but underlying their arguments is the notion that it’s just not “fair” that all polled votes don’t count alike. Using a “snapshot poll” taken in September cannot possibly tell whether someone is likely to vote in November. It’s like soothsaying, they howl. These objections make you wonder why they don’t attack all pre-election polling as politically incorrect. A further barrier to acceptance of likely-voter modeling has been the secrecy that some pollsters impose to veil the formula whereby they declare a voter “likely to vote.” And the fact that likely-voter models may be built on proprietary opinion questions further encourages skepticism. But there are good ways of determining likelihood of voting that are totally based on demographic profiling. Simply knowing the region, age, gender, marital status, work status, length of residence, race and ethnicity of voters allows powerful prediction of likelihood of voting. Any sophisticated political observer who doubts the value of “profiling” to predict likelihood of voting should review copies of the Census Bureau’s biennial reports on voting and registration. This week I reviewed “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2000.” Even though this is a federal publication, the political-correctness police haven’t discovered it, so it tells the truth. Many racial or ethnic groups vote less than do non-Hispanic whites. For example, it reports that among all voting-age Hispanics, just 28 percent voted in 2000. Even among Hispanic “citizens” of voting age, just 45 percent voted. And among Hispanic citizens who are registered to vote, only 79 percent voted. Similar patterns were noted among Asians and Pacific Islanders. These data are not reported to denigrate these ethnic or racial minorities but simply to make the objective and data-based point that these groups vote less than do non-Hispanic whites or blacks. Racial profiling may be wrong for policing, but it is right for pre-election polling. The census study also reveals that women, older people and married people are more likely to vote. The gender factor is particularly interesting. Until 1984, men were more likely to vote than women. But as more women won degrees and jobs, the polls were reversed. More education is a powerful factor in voting, even among the better-educated. For example, 75 percent of bachelor’s degree holders voted, but 82 percent of those with an advanced degree went to the polls in 2000. Age is a demographic responsible for huge differences in registration and voting. Only 51 percent of citizens age 18-24 were registered to vote in 2000, and just 36 percent of them voted. By comparison, among people age 65-74, 79 percent were registered and 72 percent voted. So the ultra-liberal “Rock the Vote” crowd is pretty much wasting its time, thank goodness. They’d be better off getting Chubby Checker to do a twist contest at the condos in Fort Lauderdale. One of my favorite data points involves couples. Among married people whose spouse is present, 68 percent voted. But among married people whose spouse is absent, on account of illness or death, just 52 percent voted. Just 53 percent of the divorced voted. Among the separated, only 46 percent voted. And merely 44 percent of those who had never married cast a ballot in 2000. Voting is surely a social act. When we have someone to discuss it with over the breakfast table, we’re more likely to go to the polls. While I can understand how some sensibilities may be offended by these data, it’s just a fact of life that some citizens vote and some don’t. We’re not all equally likely to vote. And the sooner pollsters factor that into their equations, the sooner we’ll get to the truth.