Students learn about voting

By Cathy Spaulding
Phoenix Staff Writer

November 03, 2008 12:16 am

— Polling places and registration tables throughout Muskogee and Fort Gibson reported nearly 100 percent turnout with people registering and voting early for the 2008 presidential election.
These voters, however, are casting their ballots five to 10 years “early” as they participate in mock elections at Muskogee, Hilldale and Fort Gibson schools. At several elementary and middle schools, students not only voted, they ran the election and campaigns.
“I think it’s a really neat experience; I’m glad I did this,” said Fort Gibson Middle School eighth-grader Sarah Salter, who manned the ballot box at her school’s mock election Friday. “This will help us learn what to look forward to when we turn 18.”
Area teachers say students seem more interested in this year’s presidential election than students in past years.
“Our kids have been discussing the historic significance of this election,” Ben Franklin Science Academy second grade teacher Sandra Riley said, pointing out that, depending how the election comes out, the United States will either have an African American president or a woman vice president.
Her class has been helping BFSA gifted and talented students conduct a mock election at the school, which serves kids from kindergarten through eighth grades. The students spent part of Wednesday and Thursday in classrooms and outside classroom doors getting classmates registered to vote.
The school set up a polling place and ballot box in a commons area.
BFSA seventh-grader Bailey Robinson said she preferred Republican John McCain.
“I like his running mate,” she said, referring to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. “I like what she has done in Alaska.”
BFSA sixth-grader Ashley Wooden, however, preferred Democrat Barrack Obama.
“I think he is a responsible person who would make America a better place,” she said. “He has the heart to do it.”
Some area schools, already held their elections.
At Cherokee Elementary, Obama received 261 votes, or 92 percent of the vote in a Thursday election that included 16 votes for McCain, three votes for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, one vote for independent Chuck Baldwin and a write-in for New York Senator Hillary Clinton.
“The Clinton vote was icing on the cake,” said Suzie Orton, who teaches the gifted and talented program at Cherokee.
She said the school held an assembly in which 11 students gave speeches on behalf of different candidates.
“There is a Web site, Bill of Rights.com, in which we heard the candidates voices and their stand on the issues,” Orton said. “We had a nice turn-out of parents at the assembly. I am so proud of our students and parents.”
Orton said that when election results were listed on a big poster Friday morning, “kids jumped and laughed when they saw that their candidate won.”
Results from a Friday election at Fort Gibson Middle School and a Thursday election at Pershing Elementary were considerably different. At Fort Gibson, 67 percent of the students supported McCain while 33 percent chose Obama; no vote figures were given. At Pershing, 218 students, or 66.8 percent voted for Obama, 89, or 27.3 percent voted for McCain and 19, or 5.82 percent, voted for independent Ralph Nader.
At Fort Gibson, students voted in the library during the lunch period. FGMS history teacher Linda Arnett said she worked to make the election as accurate as possible. When they registered to vote, they were assigned one of six precincts, two for each grade level.
“That way they learn that not everyone votes at the same place,” she said. Students had to present their registration cards when they voted, she said.
At one table a student had stacks of copied voter registration cards for students who forgot their cards.
Students at Hilldale Middle School will have a mock election this week, history teacher Dorothy Allen said.

Reach Cathy Spaulding at 918-684-2928 or Click Here to Send Email

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