South Carolina Exit Poll Asks If ‘Blacks Are Too Demanding’ In Quest For Equal Rights
An exit poll in South Carolina is raising some eyebrows after it asked voters if “blacks were too demanding in their push for equal rights.”
Social media is characterizing the questionnaire as “racist” and “shameful.” Here is the entire text of the exit poll, as provided by Mashable.
People are not taking this sitting down, and have exposed the exit poll questionnaire in South Carolina for all to see. This Twitter user is certainly miffed about the insensitive question asked from residents of Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, and Spartanburg.
An exit poll questionnaire in SC yesterday. This is shameful! pic.twitter.com/MiS0FatnU5
— Auztin (@troyauztin) November 5, 2014
In case you were wondering, racism is alive & well in SC. The fact the the poli sci prof saw no prob w/ Qs is absurd. http://t.co/p0mJJGS0oV
— Jessica Vitak (@jvitak) November 6, 2014
To say that South Carolina voters are upset with this exit poll would be an understatement, as proven by the many people who have commented on sites such as Twitter. So, who is behind this seemingly racial questionnaire?
Meet David Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University, who said he was trying to prove that race does not influence whites who vote for political candidates, according to an interview with WSPA. South Carolina made history on Tuesday when voters elected Tim Scott, the first African-American senator to win in the South since Reconstruction.
It was designed to take advantage of a political moment of Senator Tim Scott’s election as the first African-American from a southern state since reconstruction. It was not designed to be provocative.
“We do this every day. We didn’t think too much about it until we got it out in the field and saw that there was some reaction.”
Woodard — who says the problematic statements used in his exit polls have been used by pollsters for decades and that’s why he chose to include it — was surprised by the reaction it garnered in South Carolina.
Doctoral candidate in political science from University of South Carolina, Paul White Jr., who joined Woodard on this project was also surprised by the reactions.
“You had liberals getting offended. You had conservatives getting offended. It was all over the place,” said the academic.
But for many South Carolina voters who were surveyed in the exit poll, it was not what they were expecting when they were selected to participate.
“I took this poll in Seneca,” commented Matt Alexander, on WSPA’s Facebook page. “I didn’t answer some of the questions. They were overtly racist.”
“I actually thought it was a joke,” said Bonnie Lemley on the same site. “Apparently, it wasn’t.”
Do you think the South Carolina exit poll questions are racist or valid?
[Image via Shutterstock]
