How Quakers Voted in the 2008 Election

I’ve finally finished compiling the statistics from the poll we conducted here last week. When I initially posted the survey it hadn’t dawned on me that it would be me who had to compile all of the data as well! That took quite awhile, especially since Math and using Excel aren’t Wess Daniels specialities. But alas, the results are in and I think you will all enjoy seeing the statistics. These results are based on the 181 participants who took the survey from November 6-10th, 2008 (if you have time you should visit the comments and read the variety of remarks offered as well). One glaring omission is age range. When it hit me that I left out that category I was really disappointed. Especially because other sources are making such a big deal about the younger Evangelical vote, and the youth vote more generally. So it’s a pretty big boo-boo on my part. Otherwise, for a very simple little poll I feel pretty good about it and I hope you will find some useful data here.

If you have access to this week’s copy of Britian Yearly Meeting’s The Friend,

Summary of Data:

Here are just a few of the basic things we learned from the poll, the slides below have much more information in them.

Who Turned Out to Vote:

• Liberal – 46%
• Evangelical – 26%
• Beanite – 10%
• Conservative – 7%
• Independent – 6%
• Other – 5%

Who Quakers Voted For:

• Obama/Biden – 83%
• McCain-Palin – 9%
• Third-Party – 3%
• No Vote b/c Faith – 3%
• No Vote b/c personal – 2%

Top 5 Voting Issues:

• War – 26%
• Energy/Environment – 22%
• Economics – 20%
• Healthcare – 19%
• Character – 14%

Basis of Faith for Voters:

(The three largest groups represented)

• Christian – 132
• Universalist – 23
• Post-Christian – 12

Convergent Friends Who Voted:

• Yes – 40%
• No – 16%
• A What? – 31%
• No Answer – 13%