About half of Arizona Hispanics voted for official English proposition

About half the Hispanics who voted Tuesday in Arizona supported a successful ballot proposal that makes English the state's official language, according to an exit poll by The Associated Press.

While whites and blacks favored it overwhelmingly, Hispanics and other racial groups were divided over Proposition 103, which also requires that government functions be conducted in English.

Like three other immigration measures on the Arizona ballot, Proposition 103 drew in support in the 70 percent range. People on both side of the immigration debate said they weren't surprised by Hispanic support for the proposal.

..."I think our sense that the Hispanic community is monolithic is just shattered when these issues come before us," [Fred Solop, a political science professor and pollster at Northern Arizona University] said.

The poll of 2,523 voters was conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

The survey included 600 absentee voters interviewed by telephone during the past week and their responses were weighted to represent 20 percent of the total sample — their estimated proportion of the state's electorate. Results were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, higher for subgroups...

Immigration · Thu, 11/09/2006 - 22:06 · · Importance: 1