A poll of Cuban-American registered voters in a local congressional district indicated support for restrictions on tourism and family visits to Cuba.

BY RUI FERREIRA AND CASEY WOODS

Cuban Americans in a local congressional district support travel restrictions on tourism and family visits to Cuba, according to a new poll exploring the views of the Cuban community in South Florida.

The poll, commissioned by U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart for his district, indicates that 89.7 percent of the 400 Cuban-American voters surveyed support retaining the U.S. restriction on tourism, while 85.2 percent back the current policy that prohibits Cuban nationals from visiting the island more than once in three years.

Among those voters, 88.5 percent also supported the economic embargo against Cuba, although those younger than 34 were less inclined to back it. The time of their arrival did not make a significant difference in attitudes toward those policies, according to the poll.

''It's impressive and admirable to see how the community is more united than ever on the position that it's necessary to remain firm in favor of democracy and against tyranny,'' Díaz-Balart said. ``This shows that the Cubans have a very uniform posture in relation to Cuba policy.''

The respondents to Díaz-Balart's poll, conducted Sept. 25-30 by analyst Dario Moreno, were all registered voters and 80 percent arrived before the 1980 Mariel boatlift. They all live in Díaz-Balart's district, which encompasses portions of South Broward and Central Miami-Dade down through Palmetto Bay.

The poll's margin of error was not immediately available, according to Díaz-Balart's office.

The Díaz-Balart survey's conclusions diverge on certain points from those of another, broader poll released Monday.

The previous poll, a Sept. 14-20 survey of 600 Cubans in Miami-Dade and Broward counties by Bendixen & Associates, indicated that the time of arrival affected attitudes toward policies such as the family travel limit. In the Bendixen poll, most of the early waves of exiles backed such limits. They were opposed by a majority of those who came in the 1980s and after.

The key difference in the polls was that Díaz-Balart's poll only surveyed registered voters, said Joe Garcia of the nonprofit group NDN, which paid for the poll along with Bendixen & Associates.

''Cuban-American registered voters tend to be older and much more conservative,'' Garcia said. ``With our poll, we were trying to find out what was going on in a broader swath of the community.''

In the Bendixen poll, 57 percent of those polled arrived after 1980.