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Poll: Just 28 percent say police should have military weapons and vehicles

Friday, Nov 14, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute polled Illinoisans on a topical question…

Should local police forces have military weapons and vehicles, such as assault rifles and tanks, or should these kinds of weapons be reserved only for the military and National Guard?

Should have 27.8%
Only military 63.8%
Don’t Know 8.3%

* From the Institute…

Democrats and liberals are the strongest opponents, both topping 70 percent. Over half of Republicans and conservatives shared that opinion.

Among racial groups, seven of ten black respondents say such weapons should be returned to the military, compared with 61.9 percent of white respondents. Geographically, opposition to police militarization was strongest in Chicago (69.5 percent) and its suburbs (67.2 percent), while downstate the opposition to militarization was still a majority (54.5 percent).

You can read the whole poll, with crosstabs, by clicking here.

There’s a bunch more interesting stuff in there, including questions like: My local police department represents the racial makeup of my community…

* How would you rate your local police department on police protection?…

* How would you rate your local police department on the ability to respond quickly to calls for help and assistance?…

* Should the racial makeup of a community’s police department be similar to the racial makeup of that community as a whole, or isn’t it necessary?…

* My local police department responds to the needs of all members of the community…

31 Comments

*** UPDATED x2 *** Depressing charts

Thursday, Nov 13, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller

*** UPDATE 1 *** I agree that the New York Times made an error here. From a commenter…

I am thinking these numbers are not correct. There were 7,505,002 registered voters in the primary according to the IL Board of Elections. There were probably a few more in the general but not too many. Quickly just grabbing the Treasurer race numbers there were 3,486,159 votes so far. That’s 45.45% . So unless there was a big difference in registered voters from the primary(I doubt it) their numbers appear wrong.

And…

It actually goes up to 47.57% using the governor race results of 3,570,488 votes so far. That would get us top ten. But if Illinois numbers are wrong so could the other states.

Yep.

*** UPDATE 2 *** Ah, OK. From another commenter…

The NYT is reporting percentage of eligible adults, not registered voters. So the turnout is both 47.57% (of registered voters) and 39% (of eligible adults).

[ *** End Of Updates *** ]

* Man, turnout just sucked here. I mean, we were above the national average, but still…

If that’s accurate, it’s horrible for Illinois. 2010 turnout was 51 percent. 2006 was the worst turnout year since I don’t know when, but it was still 49 percent.

Also, why does Wisconsin get such a much higher turnout than Illinois?

* Here are the below average states…

So, we have one of the highest turnout states directly to our north, and the worst turnout state directly to our east.

* Nationally, 2014 was the worst American turnout year since 1942, when millions were overseas fighting wars…

* Congressional numbers…

And there you have it.

* Moving right along…

* Explanation…

This evidence suggests that polling bias has been largely unpredictable from election to election. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the polling was biased against Democrats in 1998, 2006 and 2012. However, just as certainly, it was biased against Republicans in 1994, 2002 and now 2014. It can be dangerous to apply the “lessons” from one election cycle to the next one.

Turnout was a big reason for polling failure this year. The models were just wrong and you can only poll people who answer their phones.

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Thursday, Nov 13, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller

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