Less than two weeks before the 2006 mid-term elections, a new Associated Press/AOL News poll (http://news.aol.com [1]) just released cites that 35 percent of Americans, and 43 percent of likely voters, are using the Internet to get information about the upcoming election.

According to the AP/AOL News poll, those who describe themselves as liberals are more likely (51 percent) to get election information from the Internet compared with 42 percent of moderates and 39 percent of conservatives.

In addition, the poll found that almost a quarter, 24 percent, of respondents who get election information from the Internet indicated that they have accessed a blog this election season to gather information, while 10 percent of Internet users have accessed a message board, chat room or blog to participate in election discussions. The number of blogs has grown considerably since the previous election season. In its State of the Blogosphere, August 2006 report, Technorati claims that the worldwide blogosphere has doubled every six months for the last three years – or 175,000 new blogs per day.*

Other findings include:

* 49 percent of men get news or information about the election from the Internet, compared with 38 percent of women;

* 59 percent of those under 35 years old get election information from the Internet, 39 percent of those over 35 and 18 percent of seniors over 65 use the Internet to get election information;

* Likely voters who get election information from the Internet are more likely to trust the Republican party on who would best handle taxes, 46 percent, compared with 38 percent who do not use the Internet to get election information;

* Those who get election information from the Internet are less likely to say that corruption and scandal in Congress will influence their vote in November, 34 percent, than those who do not use the Internet to get election information, 48 percent.

Survey Methodology

The AP-AOL News poll was conducted by Ipsos, an international public opinion company. 2,000 adults and 970 likely voters were interviewed by telephone from October 23-25. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points for adults and 3.1 percentage points for likely voters.

About the Associated Press

The Associated Press is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. Its multimedia services are distributed by satellite and the Internet to more than 120 nations. For more information, visit www.ap.org [2].

About AOL

AOL is a global Web services company that operates some of the most popular Web destinations, offers a comprehensive suite of free software and services, runs the country's largest Internet access business, and provides a full set of advertising solutions. A majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., AOL LLC is based in Dulles, Virginia. AOL and its subsidiaries also have operations in Europe, Canada and Asia. Learn more at AOL.com.