HARRISBURG -- A new Quinnipiac University poll reveals an oddity about the public's reaction to the pay raises state legislators gave themselves in July.

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For sure, people are angry. More than 80 percent of the 1,530 registered voters who were surveyed said the 16 percent to 34 percent raises should be repealed or reduced.

Of those, 61 percent called for an outright repeal, while 22 percent said the raises should be scaled back. Eleven percent favored leaving the raises as they are and the rest were undecided.

But at the same time, 57 percent of those responding said they wouldn't actually vote their incumbent legislator out of office solely on the basis that he or she had voted for the raises in the wee hours of July 7.

By contrast, 37 percent said they would oust the incumbent for that reason.

In another survey result, 67 percent -- two-thirds of those who responded -- said they didn't even know how their local legislator had voted on the pay hike issue.

"It's obvious that the pay raise is hated, but I think it shows that voter anger is broad but not too deep," said pollster Clay Richards, who released the results at the Capitol.

"It doesn't appear that lawmakers will suffer greatly at the polls [in 2006] for making themselves the second-best paid legislature in the country," behind only California, Mr. Richards said.

"General Assembly leaders know that pay raises are always unpopular, but the heat goes away."

Mr. Richards predicted that "a handful, maybe five or six" legislators who voted for the pay raises could lose their re-election bids in 2006, but thought that most of the 119 House members and 27 senators who voted for thes raises will survive.

Russ Diamond of Lebanon County, head of Pa. Clean Sweep, which has begun a statewide campaign to oust incumbent lawmakers, had a different take on the poll results.

Given the large number of people who didn't know how their legislators voted on the raise, he said, "job one is educating the voters."

The poll results are "symptomatic of the real problem we have in Pennsylvania. Voters just don't pay attention to what goes on in Harrisburg," Mr. Diamond said.

He was encouraged, however, that 37 percent of the respondents said they'd vote their legislator out based on their pay raise votes.

"I consider that a great head start," he said. "We can give them other reasons to vote incumbents out -- property taxes, education, infrastructure and the way business is done in Harrisburg, without public input and in the middle of the night. The pay raise has opened the door for everyone to discuss how our legislators do business."

Tom Cagle, a leader of an anti-pay-raise petition drive in northwestern Pennsylvania, said he thinks the poll is favorable to his cause because it shows many voters are beginning to watch what lawmakers are doing.

"It sends a notice to legislators that they should be right on a lot of things -- not just the pay raise -- things like reforming property taxes, health care issues, increasing minimum wage and fixing roads and bridges," said Mr. Cagle, who lives in Crawford County.

The poll also shows that the public's opinion of how the General Assembly is doing its job is dropping like a rock.

The favorability rating is now at only 26 percent, down from 37 percent in July, 40 percent in April, 44 percent in February and 46 percent in September 2004. The public's favorable rating of the Legislature hit a high of 49 percent in April 2003.

Of all areas of the state, the public's opinion of the General Assembly is lowest in Allegheny County, where only 14 percent gave the Legislature a favorable rating. In southwestern Pennsylvania as a whole, the favorable rating was only a little better -- 19 percent.

Southeastern Pennsylvania gave legislators the best rating -- 32 percent of those polled said lawmakers were doing a good job.