I created a poll to collect not just where a person might put their vote in the 2012 USA presidential race, but also to collect some of the common reasons why they chose to vote that way. I'm looking for more participation. There are graphs of results for both raw numbers and distribution of "not-X" voting.
2012 Presidential Poll: How Do You Really Feel?
So far, I've shared it with my circle of friends and acquaintances on social media and have 83 entries. The poll is based upon one IP address, one entry to prevent rampant gaming of the system. I do recognize that there are a number of issues, ranging from the expectation that participation requires internet access to excluding multiple entries from a single ISP account.
Still, I think some interesting information may come out of it. Some of the common reasons for a vote don't really need further elaboration. Wanting to support a particular candidate or party is pretty self-explanatory. Last night, however, I started producing a graph showing the distribution of votes from people who identified voting against a major party candidate (the "not-X" mentioned above).
It is early to claim any kind of significance for results, but I do find it interesting that there is more fragmentation currently apparent in not-X voting when X is Barack Obama than when X is Mitt Romney. About 43% of the not-Obama voters say they will vote for the major party opponent, Mitt Romney, while the rest indicate they will vote for 3rd party or write-in candidates. About 70% of the not-Romney voters say they will vote for the major party candidate, Barack Obama, while the rest indicate they will vote for 3rd party or write-in candidates. This could be an effect simply of the distribution the poll has had so far, that those people who I know well tend more to be in the centrist-to-liberal range of political identification.