amancalledpony's blog post - Informal Poll

My voting place is in a church. It is also a Food Shelf. On the first Tuesday of the month they give out extra things I guess. At 8:30 this morning there was no line to vote but at least 30 people in line for food (they open at 10 or 10:30). Being the statistical type I decided to take a poll of the people in the food line after I voted. I asked every third person if they voted or intended to vote. It hit me on the first person I should also ask if they are legally in the US. Turns out my sample size was 11.
1 person had voted
3 people did not speak English and when someone interpreted for them 1 said no, 1 said yes and 1 said they were illegally in the country
4 people said they were illegally in the US.

The 4 unaccounted for above said they had no intention of voting because it was a waste of time and it makes no difference. Very sad.
What I found interesting was the 3 people who spoke broken English and admitted to being here illegally said they would vote if they were citizens. One of these people had another woman join her. Seems this woman was naturalized last year and had tears in her eyes from voting. In her broken English she said in her Province in Mexico voting was a farce (her word). She said Americans in her building don't realize what a privilege it is.

I will admit I was not thrilled about the choices for most elected offices this year. I was voting more against the money grabs that are initiative measures in this state. But that woman reminded that a lot of people didn't even get a chance to have a say in their government. She was damn proud to have her I Voted sticker on.

Legal disclaimer: The above poll was not undertaken with scientific methodology. It was strictly an informal random sample of people. It is assumed all respondents were honest in their answers. Results with different subject groups could imply different results. There is no margin error calculated for this sample.