One NIU class has some political answers.

Students in Political Science 304/407: Public Opinion, along with their teacher, Barbara Burrell, released on Friday the results of their political poll, which surveyed 519 randomly selected likely voters between Oct. 1 and 7.

According to its results, 49 percent of voters said they plan to vote for Democrat Rod Blagojevich in the upcoming gubernatorial election.

“I thought that was quite interesting as DeKalb County has historically been a very strong Republican county,” said Burrell, in an NIU press release.

Burrell is an associate professor of political science and the associate director of the Public Opinion Laboratory.

“In open-ended questions that asked respondents why they were not voting for Ryan, many pointed to the scandals surrounding the current Republican governor.”

Republican Jim Ryan earned 33 percent of the governor vote, while 4 percent voted for Libertarian Cal Skinner. Thirteen percent were undecided.

The poll also found that 18 percent of Republicans said they will vote for the Democrat, while only 9 percent of Democrats said they will vote for the Republican. The survey had a 4.4 percent margin of error.

The U.S. senator race also led county voters to cross party lines.

Incumbent and Democrat Dick Durbin was favored by 48 percent of those polled, compared to only 24 percent for Republican Jim Durkin. Twenty-five percent were undecided.

In the attorney general race, however, more county voters voted along historical party lines.

Republican Joe Birkett garnered 40 percent approval from those polled, compared to 31 percent for Democrat Lisa Madigan. Almost one-fourth were undecided.

“The lack of support for Madigan might also indicate that some of the scandal surrounding her and her father may be hurting her,” Burrell said in the release. “But in such a Republican county, it might be a bit surprising that Birkett’s lead isn’t larger. The high number of undecided voters also may indicate that people don’t care much for either candidate.”

Burrell said that the purpose of the project was to teach students the role of public opinion in democracies.

“So much weight is put on public-opinion polls these days,” she said. “So I wanted students to have a thorough understanding of them. I also wanted them to have the opportunity to have a thorough conversation with people, to listen to them talk about who they are going to vote for and have them articulate their opinions.”

Some of the questions probed about education level, party affiliation, ad campaigns and political views.

Maureen Ryan, a senior political science major, said residents need to educate themselves and become more aware of what’s happening in their community.

“Most of the residents that I spoke with didn’t even know who Dennis Hastert, the [U.S.] speaker of the house, was,” she said. “I am a college student and I know more about what’s occurring in their districts than them. Residents should pick up a paper and read more.”

David Gerber, a senior political science major, said most of the people he spoke with were disinterested in the elections.

“It’s the worse of two evils,” he said. “People don’t know who they can trust.”

Ray Agosto, a senior political science major, said that out of 10 people he surveyed, no one used the Internet to research information on a candidate. According to the poll, only 6 percent of respondents said they looked for election information online, while 73 percent said they had heard or seen a campaign ad.

“It’s very surprising,” he said. “You have individuals with high incomes and education access to a computer, but they refuse to search for additional information on a candidate in their community.”

Burrell also commented on the Internet information.

“If I were a candidate, I would be out there getting up yard signs and knocking on doors,” she said.