Robert Huelsman         

11-7-10

Mat 115

Long

My experience during the voting exercise was mostly a good one. Most people responded to us and were not really bothered that we took a moment of their time. A majority of the people we asked were older because of the time that we were there, so most people who were working had already voted before work so it was people looking to come in and vote during the off hours.

            To do the poll I worked with Keane Shafer, who is in another one of your classes, and went to the Union firehouse. We arrived a little before ten thirty so I went in and voted before we started. When I went in to vote I asked the election officials if it was ok for us to conduct our exit poll because I did not want us to get ourselves in any trouble if we were required to follow any certain rules. I was informed that it was fine as I explained to them that it was for school and decided to show them my student idea to back the idea that I am a student, because to be honest I’m sure I don’t really look like one with no NKU apparel on. They told me that as long as I was outside it was ok so after voting Keane and I stood just outside the doors and started to ask people to participate in our poll. After about five minutes one of the election officials came out and talked to us again asking what we were doing. He seemed to not really believe that we were collecting the poll with good intentions. We were then told to stand farther away at the end of the walk was about 30 or 40 feet from the front door. This is where Keane and I stayed until for half an hour seeing fourteen people and getting twelve people to participate in our poll.

            In the end other then the fact that it was cold outside it was a good experience overall and being less difficult then I had expected. All in all Rand Paul got eleven votes, Jack Conway got one, and two people decided to not participate. While I wish we could have gotten more people it was a slow time and we were getting kind of cold so we decided to stop after thirty minutes. We were there from 10:30 to 11:00. I was honestly surprised at the lopsidedness of our poll. I know that our area is heavily republican but I was not sure that a lot of people supported the tea party. This was certainly an educational experience.