South state faction is more conservative, but north and south agree on social services
By Momo Chang
Published November 10th 2006 in Inside Bay Area
Arthur Liou and Tam Bui positioned themselves outside an Oakland polling station early Tuesday in a statewide effort to gauge Asian-American voters' opinions on the governor's race, state ballot measures and other political hot-button issues.
"There's not as much information on participation rates and where people stand on issues" for Asian-American populations, said Liou, a Boalt Law School student volunteering with nonprofit legal organization Asian Law Caucus, which organized exit polling in Oakland and San Francisco.
Asian Americans are a fast-growing population and are viewed as a potential swing vote — at least 2 million are eligible to vote in California, according to U.S. Census data.
But predicting how they would vote could be tricky. For example, Liou said, there is an assumption that Asian Americans do not support same-sex marriage, an issue that may appear on a future ballot.
Not so, according to 1,287 Asian-American voters polled Tuesday in nine languages at precincts in Oakland, San Francisco County and Los Angeles County.
About 70 percent of Bay Area Asian-American voters supported giving same-sex couples the right to marry, while their Los Angeles counterparts were about evenly split, according to an exit poll organized by nonprofit organizations.
In fact, if there is any trend in the polling, it is that Bay Area Asian Americans tend be more liberal than those in Los Angeles. When it came to the governor's race, the Bay Area's Asian-American voters favored Democratic Party candidate Phil Angelides — about 67 percent of them — while Los Angeles County voters were nearly evenly split between Angelides and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to the poll.
Bay Area Asian Americans also proved to be more liberal on Proposition 85, which would have required parental notification of teenage abortion, by voting against the measure. Los Angeles Asian Americans supported Proposition 85, which did not pass.
But Asian Americans are unified when it comes to supporting public education, senior housing, health care and giving undocumented immigrants a path to legalization, according to the poll.
Asian Americans also supported Proposition 86, which would have increased tobacco taxes to fund health care. The measure was defeated.
Volunteers also monitored polling stations in San Francisco, where Asian Americans make up one-third of the population, in an effort to ensure language services were available for limited-English speakers.
Christina Wong, policy advocate at Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, said there was "an incredible lack of quality control in the election." She noted, for example, that some poll workers gave voters wrong information, such as telling them they should bring their own translator.
"We would love to have more training for poll workers, but due to limited resources, we only have 2.5 hours to train them," said John Arntz, director of elections for the city and county of San Francisco.
Arntz and Wong agree that a permanent staff person to oversee poll worker issues would help ensure consistency.
Many of the San Francisco polling stations mandated by federal and state voting rights laws to have voting materials in Spanish and Chinese did not, when monitors checked. Others had the information, but it was not easily visible to voters, Wong said.
Arntz acknowledged that Chinese and Spanish voter guides were not placed at some sites in the morning, an "oversight that doesn't make us happy," he said.
At two sites where there were supposed to be Spanish-speaking poll workers, there were none when monitors checked in the morning. The problem was reported and remedied by the afternoon, said Wong. This is the fourth time in eight years that Chinese for Affirmative Action monitored polls in San Francisco.
Asian Americans have the potential to impact a race using ranked choice voting, said Malcolm Yeung, staff attorney at Asian Law Caucus.
Though critics of ranked choice — or instant runoff — voting say it would isolate and confuse limited-English speaking voters, it seems that's not the case, said Yeung. Voter outreach and education is important, however.
Surveys were in precincts heavily populated by immigrant populations, and all ethnicities were polled. Exit polling in Los Angeles County was organized by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.
"There's not as much information on participation rates and where people stand on issues" for Asian-American populations, said Liou, a Boalt Law School student volunteering with nonprofit legal organization Asian Law Caucus, which organized exit polling in Oakland and San Francisco.
Asian Americans are a fast-growing population and are viewed as a potential swing vote — at least 2 million are eligible to vote in California, according to U.S. Census data.
But predicting how they would vote could be tricky. For example, Liou said, there is an assumption that Asian Americans do not support same-sex marriage, an issue that may appear on a future ballot.
Not so, according to 1,287 Asian-American voters polled Tuesday in nine languages at precincts in Oakland, San Francisco County and Los Angeles County.
About 70 percent of Bay Area Asian-American voters supported giving same-sex couples the right to marry, while their Los Angeles counterparts were about evenly split, according to an exit poll organized by nonprofit organizations.
In fact, if there is any trend in the polling, it is that Bay Area Asian Americans tend be more liberal than those in Los Angeles. When it came to the governor's race, the Bay Area's Asian-American voters favored Democratic Party candidate Phil Angelides — about 67 percent of them — while Los Angeles County voters were nearly evenly split between Angelides and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to the poll.
Bay Area Asian Americans also proved to be more liberal on Proposition 85, which would have required parental notification of teenage abortion, by voting against the measure. Los Angeles Asian Americans supported Proposition 85, which did not pass.
But Asian Americans are unified when it comes to supporting public education, senior housing, health care and giving undocumented immigrants a path to legalization, according to the poll.
Asian Americans also supported Proposition 86, which would have increased tobacco taxes to fund health care. The measure was defeated.
Volunteers also monitored polling stations in San Francisco, where Asian Americans make up one-third of the population, in an effort to ensure language services were available for limited-English speakers.
Christina Wong, policy advocate at Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, said there was "an incredible lack of quality control in the election." She noted, for example, that some poll workers gave voters wrong information, such as telling them they should bring their own translator.
"We would love to have more training for poll workers, but due to limited resources, we only have 2.5 hours to train them," said John Arntz, director of elections for the city and county of San Francisco.
Arntz and Wong agree that a permanent staff person to oversee poll worker issues would help ensure consistency.
Many of the San Francisco polling stations mandated by federal and state voting rights laws to have voting materials in Spanish and Chinese did not, when monitors checked. Others had the information, but it was not easily visible to voters, Wong said.
Arntz acknowledged that Chinese and Spanish voter guides were not placed at some sites in the morning, an "oversight that doesn't make us happy," he said.
At two sites where there were supposed to be Spanish-speaking poll workers, there were none when monitors checked in the morning. The problem was reported and remedied by the afternoon, said Wong. This is the fourth time in eight years that Chinese for Affirmative Action monitored polls in San Francisco.
Asian Americans have the potential to impact a race using ranked choice voting, said Malcolm Yeung, staff attorney at Asian Law Caucus.
Though critics of ranked choice — or instant runoff — voting say it would isolate and confuse limited-English speaking voters, it seems that's not the case, said Yeung. Voter outreach and education is important, however.
Surveys were in precincts heavily populated by immigrant populations, and all ethnicities were polled. Exit polling in Los Angeles County was organized by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.