Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

NEW YORK—The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) released last week detailed findings from its multilingual exit poll of Asian-American voters in New York during the November 2008 presidential elections. 

AALDEF, the 35-year-old national civil rights organization, polled 16,665 Asian-American voters in 39 cities and in eleven states on Election Day:  New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, Nevada, and Washington, DC.

In conjunction with Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, AALDEF Staff Attorney Glenn Magpantay and Voting Rights Coordinator Bryan Lee presented findings from the 2008 exit poll with comparative information in the following areas: Vote for President and Congress; concerns about key issues, first-time voters, voting barriers, and profiles of the Asian-American vote by ethnicity, nativity, party enrollment, citizenship tenure, and English proficiency.

AALDEF surveyed a total of 8,771 Asian-American voters at 41 poll sites in neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx.  The five largest ethnic groups surveyed in New York were Chinese (40 percent), Asian Indian (12 percent), Korean (12 percent), Bangladeshi (12 percent), and Indo-Caribbean (8 percent).  Only 4 percent of the respondents surveyed are Filipinos. Eighty-one percent (81 percent) of voters were foreign-born naturalized US citizens, and 28 percent had no formal US education.  Twenty-nine percent (29 percent) were first-time voters.

The majority of Asian-Americans voted for Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President.  More than three-fourths (78 percent) of Asian-Americans in New York supported Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President.  Twenty-one percent (21 percent) voted for Republican candidate John McCain, and 1 percent voted for other candidates. 

Filipino-American voters backed Obama at lower rates, with 60 percent of those polled voting for the Democratic candidate while South Asian-American voters gave Obama the most support, with 93 percent of those polled voting for him.  Chinese American voters also supported the Democratic candidate at significant rates, with 70 percent voting for Obama and 29 percent voting for McCain.  Among Korean American voters, 64 percent supported Obama and 35 percent supported McCain.