For more information:
Dr. Gary Brinker
Director, Docking Institute of Public Affairs
785-628-5949
gdbrinker@fhsu.edu
10/22/12 gdb/kb
HAYS, Kan. -- Kansans
responding to the fourth Kansas Speaks survey of Kansas public opinion still
overwhelmingly believe the state is a good place to live, with more than 95
percent of respondents rating it from fair to excellent.
And the "fair"
portion was only 9.1 percent. "Excellent" was picked by 19.7 percent,
"very good" by 34.9 percent, and "good" by another 32.1
percent. "Poor" (2.7 percent) and "very poor" together
totaled only 4.23 percent of the 928 people who completed the 2012 edition of
Kansas Speaks.
Fort Hays State
University's Docking Institute of Public Affairs has conducted the survey since
2009. For this year, 4,468 Kansas residents were contacted. The 928
respondents, according to Dr. Jian Sun (pronounced jan soo-un), senior research
scientist at the Docking Institutes, computes to a margin of error of 3.2
percent.
"The results of the
2012 Kansas Speaks survey suggest that Kansans still consider their state to be
a good place to live, despite serious reservations regarding the economy and
our elected officials' efforts to foster improvement," said Dr. Gary
Brinker, director of the Docking Institute.
"Perhaps the most
interesting finding was that the new requirement to show a government-issued
photo ID before voting will affect older Kansans exclusively, particularly
those over 65, and that both Democratic and Republican voters were equally
likely not to have a photo ID at the time of the survey."
That particular question
found that 2.1 percent of Kansans do not have a government-issued photo ID,
and, in response to another question, 44.4 percent of those do not intend to
get one. Docking's analysis of that result means that more than 17,000 Kansans
have no photo ID and do not intend to get any. All of them, results show, are
older than 45.
The full survey report
is available through the Kansas Speaks tab on the Docking Institute homepage at
www.fhsu.edu/docking.
"As the Docking
Institute continues to provide this service to the citizens of Kansas, our hope
is that Kansas Speaks will allow our state legislators and policy-makers to
better respond to the will of the people and foster a more democratic state
government," said Brinker.
Other interesting
findings from the Executive Summary of the report:
-- Almost 70 percent
(69.5) of respondents were very or moderately concerned that the Kansas economy
would threaten them or their families' welfare. Older people were more likely
to be concerned than younger people, and people with less education were more
likely to be concerned than those with some level of higher education.
-- On efforts by Gov.
Sam Brownback and the Kansas GOP to improve the Kansas economy, 37 percent were
"moderately" or "very satisfied;" 27.8 percent were
moderately or very satisfied with Democratic Party leaders' efforts.
-- On that same general
topic, younger respondents were less likely than older respondents to feel moderately
or very satisfied with Democratic Party efforts on the economy, and men were
less likely than women to feel levels of satisfaction with Democratic Party
efforts.
-- Respondents who were
more likely to express satisfaction with Republican Party leaders on the Kansas
economy were those who had lower levels of education, who were Republican or
leaned Republican, or who were white.
-- On taxes, most respondents
preferred to leave income, sales and property tax rates at current levels, and
16.4 percent thought income tax should be "significantly" or
"somewhat" increased. However, 52.2 percent of respondents thought
that property tax should be "somewhat" or "significantly"
decreased.