Local students cast their ballots

LYNN – Barack Obama may still have a few days of campaigning left before the presidential election, but the Illinois Senator has already won the hearts and minds of Lynn area kids, winning a recent mock election by a landslide.Students in both public and private schools in the area partnered with Newspapers in Education and The Daily Item this month to hold mock presidential elections, with a majority choosing Obama over Republican rival John McCain.With the equivalent of 45 precincts voting in the mock election, Obama garnered 2,246 votes to McCain’s 888.Click here to see complete results of the voting school-by-school.Obama won every precinct vote with the exception of two classes at Shoemaker, one at Sacred Heart and one at Our Lady of the Assumption. There was one classroom at Sacred Heart that had the two candidates tied with 10 votes each.Students held NIE elections one week before the elections, Oct. 26.Participating teachers taught the ins and outs of the election process inside the classroom, and outlined the issues of each candidate so students could make their own educated decisions.Click here to see a photo gallery from the kids voting event.In some cases, students said they went home to speak to their parents about how they would vote in the election, others whose parents were not registered to vote, said they spent much of the month educating their parents on the issues at hand.”I just think it is really important for them to know what is going on,” said Ann Wilson, a fourth-grade teacher at Aborn Elementary. “We went over vocabulary, like ?candidate,’ we went over the issues and kids brought in pictures of candidates and newspaper clippings and made posters.”Wilson’s class had a full fledged-election, complete with a city clerk taking roll call. Each class and school handled the situation a little bit differently, including St. Mary’s, which televised final speeches for each candidate before the vote.Students stood between cardboard cut outs of both candidates and read their own prepared speeches, before the school emptied into the gym for a vote.”I am voting for Obama because he is going to help the middle class with taxes they can’t afford,” said eighth-grader Christian Vitali. “He is also going to raise the minimum wage, so that will help young people make more money to help their families.”Many of the students, especially at the elementary school level, described the issues in their most basic form. Many simply said “Obama is going to help poor people, and McCain is going to help rich people,” when asked about the issues. Some students looked at the war in Iraq as a major selling point in their decision, and said they would vote for Obama because he has vowed to end the violence.”Obama is going to bring home all of the soldiers from Iraq,” said Aborn fourth-grader Christopher Johnson. “I want a president that doesn’t hesitate to do stuff, or wait until things get worse to do things.”At Sacred Heart, some of the older students have been debating the issues for weeks, even sparking some heated lunchroom discussion heading in to the vote. Once votes were placed, many students gathered around the polling area to drive in some final points against the opposing candidates.One student chose McCain because of his pro-life stance, while another selected Obama because he supports affordable health care. Either way, students were glad to have their voices heard, even if their opinions do not officially count on Nov. 4.”It is important so we can have a voice in who runs our country,” said Sacred Heart eighth grader Patrick Barceleau.For teachers and principals, the election is a valuable chance at a civics lesson, something that students do not get a lot of in today’s MCAS-heavy curriculum.”It is so important for the kids to have an awareness of the election,” said Aborn Principal Anne Graul. “It is important to learn of the issues and the candidates, the whole election process, even if they are at the first grade level