Saurav sends us a press release from SAALT about exit poll data from last November’s election as interpreted by them:
“Striking conclusions can be drawn from the data,” said Deepa Iyer, Executive Director of SAALT. “For 42 percent of the South Asians polled, this was the first election in which they had voted. Additionally, 88 percent of the South Asians who voted are foreign-born. This emphasizes the need for voter education and registration campaigns to include strategies such as naturalization drives and outreach tailored to South Asians who have arrived more recently.”
The data also revealed that South Asians chose “civil liberties” as the civil/immigrant rights issue most important in their lives. “The South Asian community has endured increased incidents of bias and immigration enforcement since September 11th,” added SAALT Board Member, Jayesh Rathod. “Our own work through dialogues with community leaders also echoes the importance of civil liberties as a prominent issue in the lives of South Asians, one that needs to be addressed in various contexts by policymakers, candidates, and advocates.”
Of particular interest in the .pdf document are the findings and recommendations. There is one line that I find revealing however, and should probably be used as a caveat:
Voters who participated in the exit poll were asked to choose the civil/immigrant rights issue that was most important to them [6]. Interestingly, most South Asian groups chose civil liberties as the issue of most importance, with the exception being the Indo-Caribbean community, which selected workersÂ’ rights.
If I am interpreting it correctly, this means that civil rights are the most important voting issue for South Asian Americans ONLY in light of the fact that the exit poll questions were very narrow in focus, and thus may have an inherent bias. The economy and the “War on Terror” for example don’t seem to have been included as a choice. The choices (included as a footnote) consisted of civil liberties; hate crimes; immigration backlogs; workersÂ’ rights; racial profiling; legalization of immigrants; voting/political representation; affirmative action; deportation/detention; and language barriers to services. This fact seems to be glossed over in Iyer’s proclamation above. The deck seems to have been stacked in favor of leftist issues. And of course there is the one stat we all want to know, right?
Three-quarters – 74 percent – of South Asian voters who were surveyed indicated that they were registered as Democrats, with 9 percent registered as Republicans; and 16 percent not enrolled in any political party. Interestingly, the Bangladeshi and Indo-Caribbean communities had the highest rates of Democratic affiliation [at 84 percent and 81 percent, respectively], whereas 20 percent of Pakistani voters claimed that they were not affiliated with any party.
Similarly, more South Asians who were polled indicated that they had voted for Senator Kerry than for President Bush. 90 percent of South Asian voters cast their vote for Senator Kerry, with the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities having the highest leanings towards the Democratic presidential candidate than the other South Asian groups.
I truly appreciate what SAALT was trying to do here and some of the recommendations are right on. Polling numbers however, are only as good as the methodology behind them. I am not sure this data passes the test EVEN from my left of center perspective.
While I too appreciate the purpose of SAALT’s report and their overall activities, it does seem as if this particular conclusion is somewhat self-serving.
If this report does not withstand scrutiny from South Asians believing in SAALT’s mission, one may speculate that other readers — especially those who may not be convinced that South Asians and others face a noxious climate after 9/11 — will just dismiss this finding.
I had the good fortune of attending “Desi Decision 2004,” a debate held in Washington, DC between representatives from the Bush and Kerry campaigns. Civil rights issues were discussed, however the evening’s attention was also devoted to other issues, such as the relationship between America and India, national security, immigration reform, health care, and outsourcing. In other words, South Asian voters had a number of substantive concerns and as such we are a legitimate voting bloc whose importance should not be limited to ethnically-distinctive (rather than common) interests.
I don’t mean to hate, but informing the reader that South Asians care about civil rights could have been accomplished in other, perhaps more convincing ways.
Dear Sepia Mutiny readers:
This is Deepa writing from SAALT. First – thank you for including the post about the SAALT interpretation of the exit poll conducted by AALDEF and its co-sponsors.
I just wanted to make a clarification to Abhi’s post, and which may be helpful to Sepia Mutiny readers.
There were actually two separate questions asked of Asian Americans on this poll– one on general issues influencing the presidential vote [the choices included the war, for example, among others], and another specifically on civil/immigrant rights issues.
So to break it down:
A question was asked about which factors influenced the vote for President in 2004: the responses included a range, such as the war in Iraq; the economy; national security; jobs; etc. There was also a write-in category. South Asians tended to choose jobs, the war and terrorism – like most other Asians. So that question captured what Abhi suggested – that issues like the economy, jobs, etc were, and are, of importance to South Asians.
A question was also asked about which specific civil or immigrant rights issues are important to Asian Americans [note that this question is not related to number 1 in that it is narrowly focused on civil rights]. That is why the responses range from hate crimes to voting rights – as Abhi noted from the SAALT report. It was interesting that South Asians chose civil liberties as their most important civil rights issue, as this also differed from what other Asian groups chose.
AALDEF chose to include these two separate questions to elicit information about (a) what Asian Americans felt was of importance in terms of voting for President in 04; and (b) what specific civil rights issues are of importance to Asian Americans.
SAALT’s role in the exit poll was to help conduct the poll and to interpret the data to provide some preliminary information about South Asian voting trends/patterns. Definitely, there are additional questions that could be added and some that can be refined, and we’ll continue to pass those suggestions onto AALDEF as they prepare for their next exit poll.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me directly at deepa@saalt.org. Thank you for reading.
AALDEF’s exit poll focuses on civil rights issues – and is part of a larger effort to ensure that Asian Americans are allowed to cast their vote – for whomever they wish – and that it counts.
It seems pretty simplistic to claim that it’s a biased poll when they aren’t claiming that they are the new Zogby. This is an EXIT POLL by AALDEF to get a sense of where folks are on specific issues that are relevant to the organization that’s actually doing the poll, and highlighting issues that are relevant to their mission.
Also – seems like you didn’t do a good job of reading the release and report. The statement says “South Asians chose “civil liberties” as the civil/immigrant rights issue most important in their lives.” The statement already makes it clear that civil liberties was identified out of a list of civil and immigrant rights issues.
If you ever actually volunteered to conduct the exit poll, you would know that information about other important issues is always collected, and this is a new question on the survey.
Since data is hard to find, especially on opinions in the desi community concerning civil and immigrant rights issues in the US (rather than Kashmir or Bollywood), a group like SAALT that focuses on civic engagement and civil rights should comment on something this major that was just released by a civil rights organization like AALDEF.
“Voting bloc”? That sounds more like the multiple limited-interest PACs that have formed by affluent community members around the nation to try to sway politicos to pay attention to specific issues (read: Indo-Pak relations), but are completely removed from the civil rights issues that no one seems to address. I feel like they are doing a good enough job on those issues – let’s be more inclusive, of relevant issues, like civil rights and civil liberties.
If civil rights and civil liberties aren’t “common” interests (rather than an “ethnically-distinctive” issue, as the reader writes), what are?
browncorpse, Also – seems like you didn’t do a good job of reading the release and report. The statement says “South Asians chose “civil liberties” as the civil/immigrant rights issue most important in their lives.” The statement already makes it clear that civil liberties was identified out of a list of civil and immigrant rights issues.
No actually, I did do a good job of reading it. It just didn’t smell right to me that the most important issue to South Asian voters was picked out of a group containing all similar choices. That’s all I was saying. I think most would agree.
If you ever actually volunteered to conduct the exit poll, you would know that information about other important issues is always collected, and this is a new question on the survey.
Its very presumptuous of you to assume that a) I don’t know how an exit poll works and b) that I’ve never conducted one. If I were to guess, your overall defensive tone suggests that you had a hand in conducting this poll.
Don’t take this critique personal. “Wet Kaacha” above captures it best:
SM is all about scrutiny as a service to its readers. I appreciate Deepa’s response/clarification above.
Presumptious? This isn’t defensiveness – yes I volunteered for the exit poll, along with 1200 other people – but it seems to make sense that if you’re going to question the methodology, you should take a look at the actual instrument that was used. Just because all of the data isn’t mentioned in a piece that was reacting to another organization’s release, doesn’t mean that other questions weren’t included.
No actually, I did do a good job of reading it. It just didn’t smell right to me that the most important issue to South Asian voters was picked out of a group containing all similar choices.
Again – don’t know how often we’re going to quote the same line, but read more closely: “South Asians chose “civil liberties” as the civil/immigrant rights issue most important in their lives.”
Note: it doesn’t say “most important issue.”
Based on the previous posts, I suppose the question becomes why the results of the general inquiry “about which factors influenced the vote for President in 2004” wasn’t also included as one of the main findings.
The absence of this finding may suggest to some that 1) South Asian views on topics such as the war or economy are not significant, and 2) the election of a single “civil/immigrant rights issue” from a stacked deck is noteworthy only because of a result-oriented methodology (hence why some may dismiss the finding).
It would have been more significant to skeptics if South Asians selected a “civil/immigrant rights issue” from all possible issues that may have impacted their decision-making. For example, 1) x% of South Asians thought civil/immigrant rights was an important issue (overall) to them, 2) of the civil/immigrant rights issues, those polled thought y was the most important one. The x% might be more interesting than the y.
Browncorpse, Read the title of my post. I said, “Exit Poll Analysis–biased??”
There is quite a difference between a flawed poll, and flawed analysis of the poll. I am simply stating that the analysis of the poll seemed suspicious to me. Let’s quote the line one more time:
“South Asians chose “civil liberties” as the civil/immigrant rights issue most important in their lives.”
Well duhhh. Isn’t this obvious? Why am I being fed this line in the analysis even? The term “civil liberties” pretty much encompasses all the other choices in that question of the poll, which makes this an irrelevant, question (in my opinion). To draw broad conclusions from this question seems premature.
Its true that in the last line of my post I write:
Polling numbers however, are only as good as the methodology behind them
That should probably read “polling analysis however…”
Point of clarification:
Contrary to the previous writer’s assertions, “civil liberties” does not “emcompass all the other choices” such as: hate crimes; immigration backlogs; workersÂ’ rights; racial profiling; legalization of immigrants; voting/political representation; affirmative action; deportation/detention; and language barriers to services,
Closereader, I disagree. All of those issues to me are basic civil rights which should be protected under the Constitution. For example, what if I think that racial profiling is my number one issue of concern but that hate crimes also makes my blood boil? Rather than try and decide which makes me angrier, I personally would be more inclined to choose Civil Rights, which in my mind would cover both those issues that piss me off. If I think like this than I’m sure a few others who took the poll do also.
I see what you’re saying. The terms “civil liberties” and “civil rights” can be confusing, especially for folks who have limited English proficiency. You yourself mixed them up in your comment.
These symantic gymnastics over one (of literally hundreds) of conclusions to be drawn from the poll research are ridiculous. Anyway, attacking one point is clearly a shaky basis by which to impeach the credibility of the poll at large. Unless you were one of the volunteering poll-takers, or had an intimate knowledge of the polling methodology, extrapolating that
is pure nonsense. The fact is, 91% of polled South Asians voted Kerry. The deck isn’t stacked pro-Left…the constituency itself is overwhelmingly Left. As you say,
One last time.
I am not attacking the “credibility of this poll,” as a whole. I stated in the post that most of their “recommendations are right on.” I am just saying that as a left-leaning, Democrat voting citizen, some of the conclusions found in the document seemed to me as being too broad when compared to the data they were working with. By some of the comments above I may not be the only one. If you disagree with me then read it yourself and draw your own conclusions. That is why I had two question marks after the word biased in the title. I wanted people to read the document and decide for themselves. If this analysis was shown to me, and I was the target audience (which in fairness I may not be), then I would question this analysis as I have.
I don’t want to get involved in this disagreement or be a part of a pile-on on the only center-left writer on this blog, even though I do think his particular point is incorrect. Also, disclosure: I do some consulting work with SAALT. The distinction between civil liberties and civil rights, though, is important enough to comment on:
The way I was taught in my Am History courses, civil rights encompass the treatment of groups, so things like race-based discrimination, caste, gender, etc., would fall under that rubric.
Civil liberties, on the other hand, is about how individuals interact with the state–so, the right to speak your mind, to freely associate with other people, to take out library books withotu the government snooping on you–that’s civil liberties.
If I’m wrong, someone please correct me, but I thought I would put this out there as clarification. I do, agree, though, that these terms get conflated too often and doing so makes it more diffciult to speak the master’s Liberal language (even though it’s a rather silly framework to speak in in the first place–for example how do we deal with intersections of civil liberties and civil rights issues like racism and workers rights).
Also, what’s up with “browncorpse”, browncorpse? Macabre…