MONTPELIER – For the 41st year running, Sen. William Doyle is taking Vermonters' pulse on everything from their feelings about shutting down the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to whether women's softball should be reinstituted at the University of Vermont.

Although the Washington County Republican is the first to admit his informal Town Meeting Day Survey – handed out at many town meetings and included in newspaper deliveries – is not a scientific poll, Doyle said that he generally respects the findings because a large number are returned. Generally he receives between 13,000 and 15,000 completed surveys each year.

"As a legislator, I certainly like to know how the people in the county I represent" feel about the issues, he said Saturday. "I think others want to know how people in their districts feel about key issues in the Legislature."

Some questions are repeated from past surveys, including whether Vermont Yankee's license should be renewed in 2012, and if drivers should be prohibited from using cell phones while driving.

Other issues are new this year. Doyle said UVM baseball and women's softball question came from public interest and telephone calls he received. About 3,000 people signed a petition calling for the sports to be brought back.

Another question – Are locally grown food and farmers markets an important part of Vermont's economic future? – was suggested by local-foods advocates and Rep. Carolyn Partridge, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Doyle noted legislators use the responses to help shape their thinking on issues.

For example, he said, Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, asked Doyle to add a question asking whether the state should reduce the prison population by using alternative punishments for non-violent offenders, an issue Sears' Judiciary Committee has been addressing.

Another question – Should the Legislature enact a law that encourages the drivers of cars and trucks to do less idling? – was proposed by Rep. Tony Klein, chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee.

The survey also encourages people to add comments. He said between 10 percent and 15 percent of the surveys come back with additional comments, including a few that run to several pages. In addition, some people propose questions for the following year's survey, Doyle said.

"I make those public without attribution," said the senator, who began the survey in 1969. "The comments are as valuable as the survey returns."

Other questions being asked this year are whether drivers should be barred from texting, if people are satisfied with their health insurance, if Vermont is an affordable place to live, whether statewide cell service and broadband are important to the economic future of Vermont, if President Barack Obama is doing a good job, whether people are concerned about the cost of their local school district, and whether federal stimulus dollars have been well spent.

The senator said he is already receiving responses via e-mail, and one man from Bristol made a note wondering how Doyle would have responded to each question.

"He said, 'Here's my feelings but I guess I'll never know how you felt'," Doyle said. "So I called him back and since he challenged me, I said, 'I'll accept a challenge'."

Doyle said the questions are listed in an order he believes goes from the highest public interest – the Yankee question is first – to the lowest (UVM's sports programs).

Doyle said he is occasionally surprised by people's responses. For example, he said, he was surprised last year when 70-plus percent of respondents felt drivers should be prohibited from using cell phones.

"I thought people would like to prohibit cell phones," he said. But he wasn't prepared for the overwhelming vote on that issue.

He said Vermonters have never disappointed him in their responses.