Escambia County Supervisor of Elections David H. Stafford partnered with the University of West Florida’s Haas Center on a comprehensive survey of Escambia County voters during this year’s primary and general elections in order to measure voter satisfaction with polling locations and staff, knowledge of election rules, voting method choice, and other factors.
The summary statistics and key findings from the August 30 primary election (results from the November 8 general election survey are expected mid-January 2017) were gathered using mixed-methods, including intercept and phone, and covered all three voter groups – early, mail and election day. In total, more than 1,000 voters were surveyed. A copy of the full report is attached.
Among the highlights of the survey:
• 94% of respondents were very or somewhat confident that their vote counted as intended.
• Over 99% of election day and early voter respondents rated their poll workers’ performance as excellent (90.4% ED, 94.6% EV) or good (8.9% ED, 5.1% EV).
• 98% of respondents who voted by mail reported no difficulty in understanding how to mark and cast their ballot, along with 95.7% of early voters and 97% of election day voters.
• 71.7% reported receiving their election information from local news, 52.9% from the supervisor of elections, 52.8% from campaigns, and 41.3% from social media (multiple responses allowed).
• 88% of respondents knew that Floridians have three ways to vote: early, by mail, election day.
“We were very fortunate to partner with the Haas Center to produce this valuable, comprehensive data directly from the mouths of voters,” said Stafford. “We intend to use this information to not only measure our performance, but also to glean information on voters’ preferences and habits to better serve them in the future.”
“In addition to the incredible team from UWF and the Haas Center, I’d also like to recognize Dr. Charles Stewart III (MIT) and Dr. Robert Montjoy (University of New Orleans) for their invaluable input as we took the surveys from concept to reality,” added Stafford.