Submitted by Ryan Robinson
With the upcoming 2010 mid-term election, most attention turns to the national and state stage with senatorial and congressional elections across the country. However, I decided to bring the attention back to my home town. Even though I am in 10th grade at Indian Hills High School, I decided to go out and get the answers I, and probably other people in town, want to know.
I also write under the nom de plume of Ryan Robinson on TheOaklandJournal.com. I started to write there in early 2008,; I also started a movement in 2009 to get a dog run in Oakland at the Pleasureland property. My interest in politics, relatively rare in high school, has impelled me to take on a new task in 2010.
My idea was to poll people in town about the upcoming council elections, and then share the results with everyone. While some said it would be very hard and a bit boring, I thought why not? The people in town will see it, the candidates will see it, and it can only make the race more interesting and more beneficial to everyone.
It took a while to find a suitable location, but I finally set up shop outside of the Oakland post office. When I asked people to take my short 14 question poll, the general first-impressions were people wanting to know who I was working for to do this and how much I was getting paid. I just replied saying that I’m not getting paid because it’s my own project.
Some of the questions I asked were pretty basic like asking one’s age group and if the person had voted before. As the survey goes on, it gets to more local questions asking respondents if they plan to vote in the upcoming election and also if they know the names of the candidates. I was actually shocked by some of the results myself at the end. A good portion of questions I thought were going to swing a certain way, turned out to be the opposite or not as much as I thought.
If you wanted to have your opinion heard and you didn’t take the survey, don’t worry. I plan to conduct 1 or 2 more polls with different questions to townspeople and publish them before Election Day. I always disliked not knowing which way an election could go, especially town elections because you only find out the results the day after everyone voted. Now, we can all get a little glimpse.
Below are the results of the poll which were taken between June 30th and July 3rd to 100 people in town.
1. What is your age?
18-25: 3%
26-34: 5%
35-45: 10%
46-55: 39%
56-70: 29%
70+: 14%
2. Have you ever voted before?
YES: 96%
NO: 4%
3. Are you planning to vote this year for council elections?
YES: 75%
NO: 10%
NOT SURE: 15%
4. Do you usually vote Republican, Democrat, or does it depend on the candidate?
Republican: 20%
Democrat: 19%
Depends on Candidate: 58%
(3% wished not to answer)
5. Will you most likely vote on party lines?
YES: 46%
NO: 54%
6. Would you vote for an independent candidate if he or she shared your views?
YES: 83%
NO: 2%
NOT SURE: 15%
7. What is the most important issue to you regarding the town?
Downtown Renewal/Business: 5%
Stream House Repair: 2%
Government Money Related Issues (i.e. Budget): 22%
Schools: 20%
Taxes: 51%
8. Would you say you are watching this election season more carefully than others?
YES (watching more): 33%
NO (watching less): 19%
ABOUT EQUAL: 48%
9. Have you heard of “Donald Burns”?
YES (I know): 67%
NO (I don’t know): 31%
NOT SURE: 2%
10. Have you heard of “Charlie McCormick”?
YES (I know): 23%
NO (I don’t know): 71%
NOT SURE: 6%
11. Have you heard of “Timothy Jensen”?
YES (I know): 31%
NO (I don’t know): 67%
NOT SURE: 2%
12. Have you heard of “Karen Marcalus”?
YES (I know): 69%
NO (I don’t know): 29%
NOT SURE: 2%
13. Have you heard of “Pat Tirri”?
YES (I know): 40%
NO (I don’t know): 54%
NOT SURE: 6%
14. Have you heard of Sandra Coira”?
YES (I know): 13%
NO (I don’t know): 80%
NOT SURE: 7%
Margin of Error for 100 people out of 13,312 in Oakland: +/- 9.76%
Ryan “Robinson” Schwertfeger writes for TheOaklandJournal.com and is the secretary of his class’ student council at Indian Hills High School for this coming school year. He is also the head of a campaign to get a dog run in Oakland. To contact him regarding the dog run, please email DogRun4Oakland@yahoo.com.
This is fabulous that you are taking the time to do this as well as report the results. I’m a Oakland “lifer” and have seen many changes, the good, bad and ugly and wish (myself included) more people took a vested interest in the direction of the town.
I look forward to more of your polls and insight!
Good job.
The official website:
http://oaklandnjpolls.webs.com/