Ironsuit’s Weblog

268 Southwest Texas Junior College students participated in a demographic voter survey conducted by the Eta Beta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society at SWTJC. Students from all three campuses were randomly selected during the Honors Society’s voter registration drive that lasted several weeks.

The survey is part of the Eta Beta Chapter’s Voice Your Vote program. According to Chapter Advisor Barbara Blair, “The program is designed to create civic-minded students and citizens by educating them and encouraging them to participate in the electoral process.” The Voice Your Vote program will also include a mock election on Nov. 4 from 11:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. at the Matthews Student Center.

The results of the survey reported that 45 percent of SWTJC students are registered to vote and another 17 percent plan on registering to vote.

Additionally, 18 percent of the students surveyed considered themselves more likely to be conservative and 13 percent were more likely to be liberal.  Three percent of students considered themselves independent, while 45 percent of the students surveyed were not sure of their political ideology.

Economy and taxes took the lead at 73 percent when students were asked about issues that concerned them the most this election year. Following behind the economy, 62 percent were concerned about energy and 56 percent about health care.  In addition, 49 percent believed Iraq was an important concern and 33 percent reported immigration as a concern. The two least important issues for students this year was climate, reported at 21 percent and retiring judges coming in last at 7 percent.