NIU students will poll DeKalb County residents about their views on the upcoming presidential and senate elections today through Oct. 11.

Barbara Burrell, the associate director of NIU’s Public Opinion Laboratory, will oversee the poll.

“The process will give the students of our political science classes the chance to actually listen to voters’ opinions and give them a good picture of how the polling process works,” Burrell said.

Students in Burrell’s POLS 304 public opinion class will conduct the polls via phone between 5 and 9 p.m. at the public opinion lab in downtown DeKalb.

The political science students will poll about 500 DeKalb County registered voters and ask about their views on politics and what candidate they think can best address certain government issues.

The questions will pertain to voter support for the war in Iraq, foreign trade policies, gay marriage and others, Burrell said.

“The questions will be fair, being sure not to push our own opinions on the voters and using the best survey methodology we can,” Burrell said.

This is not the first time that students have polled local voters, Burrell said. Students polled DeKalb County voters in 2000 and during the 2002 Illinois gubernatorial race.

“It was a great learning experience for the students, and the DeKalb County residents were very responsive to the students,” Burrell said.

The results of the poll will be available to the public on the NIU Public Affairs Web site sometime after Oct. 14, Burrell said.

“When students read the final poll information, all they see is results; and this is a way for them to learn about the process and how the results of polling are calculated,” said Daniel Kempton, chair of the political science department.