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Students, school, gear up for mock election

8 mins read

FARMINGTON – Campaign posters, video biographies, statistical analysis of polling results, voter registration drives and debates, all leading up to the highly-anticipated election between Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama on October 29.

That’s right, October 29. At Mt. Blue High School.

The school mock election isn’t a terribly new concept. Typically each student is given a ballot, shown the way to a booth and then marks a vote for a random candidate. Or whomever their parents like. Or they write in Mickey Mouse. Or whatever.

Mt. Blue High School however, has taken the idea to a whole new level. Four different departments are handling aspects of the election, complete with voter registration, campaign teams, speeches and, most importantly, educational opportunities.

Philip St. Onge teaches, among many other classes, two honors government courses. His two honors classes each chose a candidate, and have been working over the past few weeks to support them in the upcoming election. St. Onge credits newly-appointed Principal Monique Poulin with the project.

“This is a new experience for me,” he said, “it really has been driven by Monique Poulin. We’re looking at an interdisciplinary approach to this project, and she deserves a lot of the credit.”

Other than the obvious tie-ins with a government course, several other members of the faculty are taking advantage of the election. Math Teacher Roger Bolduc is doing a statistical analysis of the vote, teaching his class about how polls work. Librarian Mary Buckley is running the voter registration program. Cal Dorman, who works with the Jobs for Maine’s Graduates program, is running the actual election.

And, Philip St. Onge said, “we’re handling the political stuff.”


Students (from left to right) Michael Church, Kelby Lucas and Bradford Dority steady a McCain campaign poster as part of their Honors Government election project.

Obviously an election year offers an opportunity to a governments class to discuss one of the cornerstones of democracy. However, St. Onge’s students say that actively working to support a candidate, even if they personally don’t want him to win, has made them follow the race even more closely.

Listen in to one of their classes and you’ll hear debates on Governor Sarah Palin versus Senator Joseph Biden, “perception versus reality,” “wholesale and retail campaigning,” the Drudge Report and CNN, reestablishing the economy and the recent government bailout.

“We’re pretty informed teenagers,” someone says solemnly, provoking a wave of laughter.

St. Onge starts his classes with everyone sharing information they got from watching television coverage, listening to the radio, reading newspapers and the Internet. From there, they discuss aspects of the election.

“We all get the news through different sources,” Student Emily Wooden said. “It’s pretty interesting.”

The two teams spend some time working on ways to support their candidates. Team McCain, for instance, went to the Franklin County Republican headquarters in New Sharon and put up official McCain/Palin posters and banners. They’re also working on running a short video biography of McCain’s life, as well as a speech.

Student Joshua Harvell, who is on Team McCain and says he would vote for the senator in the national election, said that he supported the Republican candidate because “he has the knowledge and experience to do the job.”

“I’m basing my decision on what I think they’re going to do,” Harvell said, “not what they say they’re going to do.”

Team Obama printed up posters off the Internet and created their own flyers. Some of these have been more successful than others. St. Onge noted that another teacher brought one flyer to his attention, worried that it was being distributed by Team McCain.

“This teacher brought a poster to me,” St. Onge says, “and he said, ‘Phil, this is a little bit over the line.’ He thought it was a McCain team poster with Obama and the Twin Towers on fire in the background.”

“What? Twin towers?” Emily Wooden said. “He was leaping out of an exploding helicopter on a skateboard. We were appealing to the male psyche.”


Students Emily Wooden and Nicholas Beach consider the placement of Team Obama’s flyers.

Several students said that they had watch the presidential debate the previous evening. No one said they were impressed.

“I thought it was a joke,” Student Michael Church said, “a lot of bickering and personal attacks that I thought wasted a lot of time.”

“I really wanted to hear more about the economic situation and their plans for that,” Student Michael Cormier, who said he was considering a career in economics, said.

“I was watching South Park near the end,” someone else said.

The two honors classes decided amongst themselves which side they would support, and both St. Onge and the students stressed that inclusion on one of the teams did not indicate a preference for either candidate. Church noted that he himself would vote for Obama in a national election, but that in the mock election would support his team’s McCain.

“I’m voting in the mock election to win,” he said. “I’d like to see us be able to persuade the class.”

Most students said they expect Obama to win the mock election. Nationally, the Democratic candidate has polled higher than McCain with the younger electorate.

“If it’s a tie,” one Team McCain student said, “we win.”

Many students said they would vote like their parents will, but a handful said they would vote differently. Student Jakob Wyder said that his parents would be supporting McCain, while he was leaning toward Obama.

“I’m not sure if they would vote for the Republican necessarily,” Wyder said, “but they’ve liked John McCain for a long time. I don’t really have that connection to McCain that they do.”

Still, most of the students said the process had in general been an informative one. Only four students in both of the teams are actually old enough to vote this year. One of them, Student Nicholas Beach, said that the project was definitely helping.

“I think I’m going to be a much more informed,” Beach said.

The election will be held on October 29. The ballot’s questions will be identical to the ones used throughout the state, featuring three referendum questions in addition to the presidential, senatorial and congressional races. Students must register, at the library, in order to vote.

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