Ask most West Virginians whether corruption and vote buying mar political races, and about seven times out of 10 people will say yes.

They just don't think it happens in their neck of the woods.

According to a poll commissioned by The State Journal, 69 percent of registered voters in West Virginia believe vote buying happens either very often or somewhat often. About 21 percent of voters say they don't think it happens very often, and 2 percent say it never happens.

When asked whether voter fraud occurs in their home county, voters are a little more optimistic. About 9 percent said it never happens in their county, while 31 percent said it doesn't happen very often. A combined 49 percent said votes are bought either somewhat or very often.

"It's a little concerning that 69 percent of people believe vote buying occurs," said Mark Blankenship, senior vice president of RMS Strategies, the Charleston-based research company that conducted the poll from Nov. 22 to Dec. 1.

RMS Strategies interviewed 400 registered voters in West Virginia for the poll. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Blankenship said residents' perceptions about how often voter fraud occurs in their communities differ based on where they live.

"Southern West Virginians are more likely to believe vote buying and political corruption happens very often in their county, while people living in the Northern Panhandle are less likely to believe its happening," Blankenship said.

Specifically, 11 percent of Northern Panhandle residents believe political corruption happens very often compared to the 35 percent of southern residents and between 14 and 16 percent of residents in the Eastern Panhandle, north-central region and the eastern mountains. About 23 percent of residents in the metro area between Charleston and Huntington believe voter fraud occurs very often.

Blankenship said some of those differences may be linked to the amount of attention vote buying and political corruption have received in different regions during the past several months. Newspapers and television stations in the Charleston-Huntington area, as well as the southern region, have had numerous stories about elected officials investigated for election tampering, bribery and other charges. Several public officials from Lincoln and Logan counties have been sent to jail.

In the poll, voters were asked how much they have read, seen or heard relating to political corruption in West Virginia.

Only 5 percent of people from the Eastern Panhandle said they had heard a lot about the issue, compared to 29 percent in the Charleston-Huntington area.

Overall, 56 percent of residents said they had either heard very little or nothing about political corruption in recent months. Forty-four percent said they had heard either some or a lot about the issue.

"There has been a lot of media attention about election corruption ... but awareness is tough to achieve," Blankenship said. "But since the allegations were first made, nearly half of the entire sample is aware of the issue."