Does Your Vote Really Count? (cont'd)
by Suzette Lam, staff writer

"Section 203 is one of the most powerful tools to increase access for Asian American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote," said Elizabeth OuYang, staff attorney with AALDEF.

In the 1996 presidential elections, the exit poll was conducted in over nine Asian languages including several Chinese dialects, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Bengali, and Malaysian. AALDEF hopes to use the statistics from the exit poll help propose new community events to encourage Asian communities to become more involved in politics.

"There was a school board election here [P.S. 124] two years ago and we held a forum where we invited all the candidates to speak to the community," said Shuk Leung, 22 a volunteer with CVEA. "We had seven speakers attending and only 10 people in the audience. We need to get the Asian community involved in their communities."

The exit poll surveys were collected at 9pm from their locations in Chinatown; Sunset Park, Brooklyn; Flushing, Queens; Elmhurst, Queens; and Floral Park, Queens. According to the results from these March primaries, 60 percent of Asian American voters would vote for Hillary Clinton over Rudolph Giuliani.

A majority of voters leaving the booths at P.S. 124 were surveyed as following the results of the March primaries, with a majority of votes going to Al Gore and Joe Lieberman for president and vice president and Clinton for New York State senator.

The following are the recorded preliminary results from 14 polling sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens:

• 78% of Asian Americans polled voted for Democratic Presidential candidate, Al Gore for President
  
• Gore won 77% of all New York City voters
  
• 20% of Asian Americans voted for Republican Presidential candidate, George W. Bush
  
• Bush won 19% of all New York City voters
  
• 82% of Asian Americans polled voted for Democratic Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton
  
• Clinton won 73% of citywide voters
  
• 17% of Asian Americans polled voted for Republican Senate candidate Rick Lazio
  
• Lazio won 26% of citywide voters
  
• 60% of Asian Americans polled registered as Democrats
  
• 14% of Asian Americans polled registered as Republicans
  
• 69% of those polled were Chinese American voters, 15% were South Asians, 9% were Korean Americans, 4% were Filipino Americans, and 3% were Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Japanese American voters

This year's exit poll included over 5,000 Asian American voters, the largest pool since AALDEF started polling 1988. What do these numbers suggest? Perhaps it is disconfirmation of that stereotype that Asians are politically inactive. Perhaps it suggests this is a more efficient method of collecting data from the Asian population in New York City. Perhaps results indicate more response from the public in light of the heated issues and closeness of votes in this election.

Well, at least one thing is for sure-in this election, votes did not just count. They were counted.

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