Eighty-Seven Percent of Workers Say They Plan to Vote in This Year’s Presidential Election, CareerBuilder.com Survey Finds

28 Percent of Workers Have Debated a Co-worker Regarding the Upcoming Election

CHICAGO.- With the election less than seven days away, voting for a new president is on the minds of many workers. Nearly nine-in-ten (87 percent) workers say they will be voting in the 2008 presidential election, according to a CareerBuilder.com nationwide survey of more than 6,100 workers. Forty-one percent of workers say they plan to vote after work, followed by 31 percent who plan to do it before. Fourteen percent of workers plan to cast their votes sometime during the workday.


This year’s historic election is fueling discussions both in and out of the office. Although a quarter (28 percent) of workers say they have debated another co-worker in the office over this year’s election, 63 percent of workers report they are keeping their political affiliations to themselves in the office. When it comes to displaying political campaign materials in the workplace, 21 percent of workers say their employers do not allow them to display materials from either candidate or party.

Comparing gender, an equal number of male and female workers say they will be voting this year, 87 percent and 86 percent respectively. Meanwhile, 68 percent of female workers say they do not discuss their political affiliation in the office, compared to 58 percent of their male counterparts.

The older the worker, the higher the likelihood they will be heading to the voting booth in a few days. Ninety-five percent of workers over the age of 55 say they will cast a vote this presidential election in contrast with 92 percent of workers ages 45-54, 84 percent of workers ages 35-44, 80 percent of workers ages 25-34 and 77 percent of workers ages 18-24. By location, 89 percent of Midwestern workers say they will be casting votes this year, followed by 87 percent in the West, and 86 percent in both the Northeast and South.

When it comes to the president of their own company, workers are almost evenly split: 53 percent say they would re-elect their current president, while 47 percent would opt to elect someone new.

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive® on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 6,194 employees (employed full-time; not self-employed; non-government) between August 21 and September 9, 2008. Percentages for some questions are based on a subset of responses to certain questions. With a pure probability sample of 6,194 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.25 percentage points. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.