POLL: OLDER CITIZENS, LESS AFFLUENT STIFLED ISSUES; STRONGEST SUPPORT CAME IN UPPER-INCOME GROUP

People over age 62 and those who have children or grandchildren in parochial schools voted heavily against the Cape Girardeau school bond issue in Tuesday's election.

Also strongly opposing the $25 million proposal to build two new schools were those whose incomes are under $10,000, while voters whose family incomes are over $50,000 were the bonds' strongest supporters.

Those were among the findings of an exit poll conducted Tuesday by the Southeast Missourian.

The poll results were analyzed by Peter Gordon, a professor of marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. The sample of 327 voters had a maximum error of plus or minus 5.4 percent, with a confidence level of 95 percent.

However, the sampling predicted a much closer election than the final results indicated. The difference of about 10 percentage points could have resulted both from sampling and non-sampling errors, Gordon said.

Fifty-two percent of the respondents in the poll said they voted for the bond issue, while 47 percent reported voting "no" (percentages are rounded). That compared with the actual election results of 43 percent "yes" and 57 percent "no."

"Several dozen people declined to be interviewed," Gordon observed, "and it is likely that many of these people were more likely to have been `no' voters."

In addition, the time of day the survey was conducted morning may have biased the poll to include proportionally more retirees and housewives, Gordon said.

Fifty-five percent of the sample was female, and more than one-third of the respondents were over 62, Gordon pointed out. Five percent of the respondents were age 18-24, 35 percent age 25-45 and 24 percent were age 46-62.

The likelihood that some who voted "no" told poll-takers they voted "yes" also was cited by Gordon as a possible reason for the skewed results. "A `yes' vote may seem to be the more socially acceptable answer since it seems to support education, while a `no' vote might be perceived as a vote against education," he said.

The probability of hidden "no" votes adds weight to the poll's findings that 64 percent of voters over the age of 62 opposed the bond issue. Approving the bonds would have raised the school tax by 72 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

In the age group between 46 and 62, the issue split the vote evenly, while the 18-24 group was a statistically insignificant sample. Again, the possibility of uncounted "no" votes may have skewed the results.

The only age group that clearly supported the bonds were 25-45-year-olds, who voted more than 2-1 in favor.

Whether voters have children or grandchildren attending or planning to attend public or parochial school apparently was a decisive factor in which side they came down on.

People who have children or grandchildren attending or planning to attend parochial schools opposed the bonds by a 66-34 percent margin, while those whose children or grandchildren go to or plan to go to public schools favored the bonds 65-35 percent.

The public school voters represented about half the respondents, while 20 percent had children or grandchildren attending or planning to attend parochial schools. The remaining 30 percent had no children or grandchildren attending or planning to attend either type of school.

The same divergence was evident in people whose children or grandchildren already had finished school. Fifty-eight percent of those whose children were products of the public schools supported the bond issue, while 89 percent of those who sent their children through parochial schools opposed the bonds.

Those whose children had some combination of public and parochial schooling opposed the bond issue by 61-39 percent.

The category of public school families represented two-thirds of the respondents, parochial school families one-sixth, and voters who were users of both public and parochial schools accounted for the other one-sixth.

The poll's income breakdown revealed that those with family incomes of less than $10,000 which may include a large percentage of older people living on Social Security opposed the bond issue 65-34 percent.

The opposition was next-strongest in the $10,000-20,000 income bracket, with 54 percent voting "no."

The $20,000-$30,000 group barely favored the bonds, while the $30,000-50,000 income voters opposed the bonds 53-47 percent.

At the high end of the family income scale, voters with an annual income over $50,000 supported the proposal by 72-28 percent.

A separate category of full-time students supported the bonds by 67-33 percent.

The poll results for the building maintenance proposition, which represented a 27-cent increase in the district's levy, were very similar. But several voters in the 25-45-year-old group who supported the bond issue opposed the building maintenance proposition.

Conversely, several of the over-62s who opposed the bonds favored the building maintenance levy.

One quarter of those who responded lived in each of these school districts: Washington, Clippard and Alma Schrader. Fourteen percent lived in the Jefferson district, 6 percent in the Franklin district and 5 percent in the May Greene district.

African-Americans were proportionally under-sampled, but were slightly more likely than Caucasians to support the bond issue.