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PrintCOLUMBIA — The voter receives a slip of paper, fully realizing the importance that this single piece of paper holds, knowing it could be the most important decision made all year. They get one last contemplation of “Obama or McCain?” before making the selection that could determine the outcome of the 2008 election. But wait — isn’t this a day early?
This wasn't the actual election; this was high school students voting in classrooms. Hickman High School held a mock election Monday where students voted for presidential and Missouri governor candidates. The student government distributed and collected ballots in students' fourth-hour classes. Missouri sample ballots served as a template for the mock ballots, which included five candidates for president and four candidates for governor.
After the ballots were collected and the votes were tallied, the results were announced over the school's loud speaker at the beginning of sixth hour. Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama received 64 percent of the votes and Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received 27 percent. The remaining 9 percent was divided between the other candidates registered in Missouri, as well as some write-in candidates.
Presidential Candidates:
John McCain, Republican; Barack Obama, Democrat; Bob Barr, Libertarian; Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party; Ralph Nader, Independent
Governor Candidates:
Kenny Hulshof, Republican; Jeremiah W. Nixon, Democrat; Andrew W. Finkenstadt, Libertarian; Gregory E. Thompson, Constitution Party
In the governor's race, Democratic candidate Jay Nixon had the majority of the votes. Both he and Republican candidate Kenny Hulshof received more than thirty percent of the votes.
Hickman senior Jeff Morrow, who voted for McCain, didn’t think the results gave an accurate depiction of how the country will vote on Tuesday.
“I think the results are more skewed because Columbia is a very liberal town, and it doesn’t reflect the nation,” Morrow said.
Hickman junior David Craig said he voted for Obama because he wants the government to lower taxes and spread the wealth.
“I think the results are kind of close to how Missouri will turn out,” Craig said.
Student body president Sebastian Martinez, a senior, doesn’t know how accurately the results will reflect Tuesday’s outcome, but he thinks the mock election results made a point.
“I think it reflects how Obama has captured the youth vote,” Martinez said. “It also shows how McCain has been written off by the youth.”
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