How voters will vote on May 2007
This article is from Inquirer.net:
“A big majority of Filipinos vote according to social interest rather than self-interest and follow their conscience rather than jump on the bandwagon, results of a survey conducted by the poll group Social Weather Stations (SWS) on April 14-17 showed.
The survey also found that most Filipinos believed that popularity mattered more than machinery in winning an election.
SWS said these findings showed that Filipino voters were independent-minded and not easy to manipulate.
Seventy-nine percent chose the statement “I will vote for a candidate if most will benefit from him or her, even if I myself will not.”
Only 21 percent chose to say that “I will vote for a candidate if I will benefit personally from him or her, even if most will not.”
In a choice between the views that “One should vote according to one’s conscience, whether or not the candidate would win,” and “A vote for a losing candidate would be wasted, therefore one should vote for the candidate who is leading and would probably win,” 77 percent chose the conscience vote.
Only 23 percent chose the bandwagon vote.
In nine SWS national pre-election surveys since 1992, the conscience-vote answers had ranged between 77 percent and 87 percent.
Asked to choose between the statements that “The political machinery of a candidate wins the election for him or her,” and “A candidate wins due to true popular support, with or without political machinery,” only 32 percent picked the first.
Sixty-six percent chose the second statement.
In two SWS national surveys before the 2004 elections, 61 percent and 63 percent, respectively, chose popular support.
In an SWS national survey before the 1992 elections, it was a high 85 percent.
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