UCD students set to vote ‘Yes’ to Lisbon
• 57% of students in favour, 17% against; 22% undecided
• Two-thirds of undecided student voters are female
UCD Students are likely to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, with 57 per cent of those polled preparing to vote Yes in Friday’s referendum, while 22 per cent of students have yet to decide how they will cast their votes.
An exclusive poll released today by The University Observer, taken late last week on the Belfield campus, showed that only 17 per cent of students intend to vote No to the Treaty, a much lower proportion of voters than are indicated in recent nationwide opinion polls.
Of students who were yet to decide how to vote, over two thirds – 68 per cent – were female.
Male voters surveyed expressed greater support for the referendum, with 66 per cent of respondents intending to vote Yes, 16 per cent voting No, and an almost identical number undecided on how to vote. Female voters were slightly less polarised, with just over 50 per cent having decided to support the Treaty, compared to 18 per cent disapproval. 28 per cent of female students were yet to decide how to cast their vote at Friday’s polls.
Splitting the results of the poll by each of UCD’s five Colleges, students in the College of Business & Law were most strongly supportive of the Treaty. 68 per cent of students in the College intended to vote Yes, with just 8 per cent against ratification. The College of Arts & Celtic Studies was the only one not to report a clear majority of Yes votes, though the pro-Lisbon vote still totals 47 per cent, with 24 per cent of students declaring themselves against the Treaty.
Only 3.2 per cent of students who have registered to vote said they were unlikely to vote in Friday’s referendum.
500 students took part in The University Observer’s survey, which was undertaken on Thursday and Friday of last week in a variety of major buildings throughout the Belfield campus.
Meanwhile a poll of NUI Galway students at a debate organised by their Literary and Debating Society showed a very narrow margin of victory for the Yes side. As with the first referendum, these results would suggest greater support for the Yes side in the Dublin area, than in more rural parts of the country. Unlike with the first referendum however, the Yes side appears to be narrowly leading with students in the west.
Methodology
Students were interviewed on Thursday 24th and Friday 25th September, and asked, “Are you registered to vote, and if so, how are you planning on voting in the Lisbon Treaty referendum?” A small additional number of staff were also interviewed but their responses were later discounted. The responses of students who were ineligible to vote or who were not registered to do so were disregarded. The total number of valid responses tabulated in the survey was 500.