By
Ryan Gabrielson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Low voter turnout could dilute campus' effect on election
Although many national polls show Texas Gov. George W. Bush with a slim lead over Vice President Al Gore in the presidential race, support from the UA community does not fall along those lines.
In a poll conducted by the Arizona Daily Wildcat, of 600 members of the University of Arizona community polled, 51.1 percent said they would vote for Gore, 30.5 percent for Bush, 7.5 percent for Green party candidate Ralph Nader and 10.8 percent were undecided.
The poll, which has a 4 percent margin of error, began last Tuesday and was concluded Saturday.
"That's obviously wonderful news," said Melinda Mills, Young Democrats president.
While more than half of those polled on campus said they would vote for Gore, Mills said that the UA and Pima County may not help him win Arizona's eight electoral votes.
She said that Maricopa and other counties north of Pima have a tendency to be areas of more conservative activity, which could mean a victory for Bush in Arizona.
About 60 percent of those polled said they intended to vote tomorrow, but Henry Kenski, associate professor of political science, said that it is unlikely that percentage of students will actually cast their votes.
"Intent to vote by itself doesn't mean a lot," Kenski said.
Of registered voters in the United States, only 63 percent vote, Kenski said, and of all voter groups, 18 to 24-year-olds have consistently had the lowest turnout.
"That's been the consensus for the past 28 years," he said.
Even though Mills, a political science junior, and Kelly Ward, Young Democrats spokeswoman and political science junior, said that an increase in convenience through voter registration outreach and voting by mail programs is increasing voter turnout, Kenski said it has just "slowed down the decline."
"It doesn't concern me," said Seth Frantzman, a College Republicans member, concerning the amount of support for Gore on the UA campus. "I think that college students tend to be more liberal."
Members of both the Young Democrats and the College Republicans said that the Green party's activities have helped get more students involved.
Though what effect Nader will have on the election cannot be determined, Ward said she thinks it will be a very close election.
"We probably won't know until Wednesday morning," she said.
