Students at Seoul American High School tracked the election Wednesday with their own version of the red state/blue state electoral map. (Joseph Giordono / S&S)
Students at Seoul American High School tracked the election Wednesday with their own version of the red state/blue state electoral map. (Joseph Giordono / S&S)
Kadena High School Senior Marita Andrade answers questions as she represents Presidential candidate John Kerry in a debate prior to a mock election at the school Wednesday. Andrade, who is 18, cast her first real vote for president via absentee ballot. (Fred Zimmerman / S&S)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa — Some Department of Defense Dependents Schools throughout the Pacific gave students an opportunity to let their voices be heard during the presidential election, even though it didn’t count.
More than 10 schools — elementary, junior and high schools — held mock elections at some point during the past week to see which candidate students prefer. At least three schools overwhelmingly voted to keep President Bush in office for four more years. Results were not immediately available for the remainder.
At Kadena High School, the incumbent topped Sen. John Kerry in a landslide, 445 to 196. Ralph Nader received 50 votes, while eight students wrote in Al Sharpton and one student wanted to see Meryl Streep in the White House. Almost 81 percent of the 869 students at the school participated in the vote.
The day began with mock candidates squaring off in a debate during two assemblies — one for freshmen and sophomores, another for juniors and seniors. Freshmen students portrayed the three candidates during the first assembly: Keifer Robinson was Kerry, Kerry Coubough was Bush and Kaneesha Heath played Nader. Seniors Marita Andrade, Francesca Schneider and Misha Davis, respectively, played the three candidates during the second debate.
During both debates, the “candidates” fielded questions their fellow students had prepared. Topics ranged from the economy to health care and the global war on terrorism to unemployment.
Government teacher Gil Mueller arranged the debates and mock election at Kadena. He said the student candidates researched each candidate’s views and political stances. Several practice debates were held before Wednesday’s finale.
“I think the students did very well,” Mueller said. “Their answers were parallel to those of the actual candidates … it was a striking similarity.”
Mueller said the mock election was designed to teach students about the voting and electoral process. Andrade, who represented Kerry during the second debate, said the event was important to allow the students to form their own opinions.
“A lot of kids just vote for who their parents vote for and some young people don’t vote because they’re just not aware of the issues,” said Andrade, who said she watched both political parties’ conventions and followed the candidates’ campaigns. “This year the young-person vote could be the swing vote. It’s up to us to represent our generation.”
Some of Kadena High School’s seniors did represent that generation by participating in the actual election. Mueller said 45 students were eligible to vote and most of them registered. He wasn’t aware of how many balloted, but Andrade said she cast her first presidential vote.
Earlier in the week, Gifted Education sixth-graders at E.C. Killin Elementary School on Camp Foster wrapped up a series of lessons on the election process by holding a schoolwide vote. The students did everything from publicizing the election to passing out ballots and explaining the voting process to all classes. Once the students tabulated the results, they saw they’d favored President Bush 342 votes to 103.
In South Korea, students at Seoul American High School on Yongsan Garrison turned in a decidedly conservative result. In an online poll conducted via the school’s Intranet system, 66 percent favored Bush; 26 percent, Kerry; and 5 percent, Ralph Nader.
Meanwhile, students in some classes followed the real election with low-tech versions of the network news electoral vote maps.
In an interesting mix of computers and pencils, students used laptops and wireless Internet connections to get instant updates on the latest vote counts. As various states slid into the “red state” or “blue state” columns, students taped pieces of paper onto a large wall map, under other pieces of paper labeled “Bush/Cheney” and “Kerry/Edwards.”
As they watched the results come in, some students who normally focus on world events — as members of the mock United Nations team — turned their eyes stateside. They tossed campaign facts back and forth, some sounding just as in the know as the anchors on the television set that hung over the classroom.
Joe Giordono contributed to this report.
