Early Returns : Area Students Get a Taste of Election Day Experience

Eighth-gradeR. Valenzuela carefully marked his ballot at a mock voting booth on Wednesday, dropped it in the padlocked black box, and reflected on his weighty decision.

“Clinton has the guts to change things,” he said. “I have nothing against President Bush. He’s a nice guy. But he’s not willing to go with the changes that need to be done.”

This was no uninformed straw vote. In a civics class involving the whole school, 1,070 students at Ventura’s Anacapa Middle School spent the past month examining the election process, “registering” students to vote, and even setting up an electoral college.

If it were up to them, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton would be the next President. When they had counted the votes, Clinton took 43% of the popular vote and 346 electoral votes. Ross Perot came in second with 28%, and Bush trailed with 25%.

In a Democratic sweep, the students also voted in Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein for U. S. Senate seats, Anita Perez Ferguson for U. S. representative and Jack O’Connell for state assemblyman. They favored the school bond and clean air acts, term limits and an end to the snack tax. They narrowly rejected the health care initiative.

It might have been a mock election but organizers made it as authentic as possible, said history teacher Jerry E. Mittelholtz, who spearheaded the project.

The ballots, voting booths and ballot boxes came from the county’s elections office. Nobody voted unless they had registered. Lists were checked as the students streamed through three “precincts” set up on the school grounds.

If the process was a hands-on lesson in civics, it also changed the atmosphere on the campus during the past month, Mittelholtz said. Students buzzed about politics and how they would vote.

“They were talking about it in science, math and art,” he said. “They were talking about it at dinner, forcing parents to be aware.” For some students, he said, it was the first time that they had shown an interest in class. “They were watching the news.”

Other schools in the county are also holding mock elections, but most are not delving into the campaign as thoroughly as the Ventura school. On Tuesday students at Hueneme High School in Oxnard held a mock election, with Clinton garnering 61% of the vote, Bush 24% and Perot 15%.

“We had campaign posters around the school,” Principal Terry Taylor said. Students registered to vote and role-played candidates in programs that were videotaped and shown to the students.

At Channel Islands High School’s mock election, results counted by the Oxnard students on Wednesday showed Clinton gathering 50% and Bush and Perot each getting 25%.

Anacapa Middle School students began a month ago with a voter-registration drive that lasted five days and drew 83% of the student body. In class they studied the candidates and propositions. They watched the candidates debate, and held debates themselves on the issues. They watched movies, including “The Candidate,” starring Robert Redford.

On Wednesday the students were assigned to one of three mock precincts, where they cast their votes at a bank of voting booths. Students helping with the election wore red, white and blue top hats.

For eighth-grader Josh Rosenberg, the whole election process was more complicated than he and other students had realized, especially when it came to the propositions on the ballot.

“Sometimes the kids knew more than their parents about the issues,” he said. But often students said they agreed with their parents’ political leanings.

Josh and others were critical of the mudslinging that has characterized the presidential election, especially during the vice presidential debate.

“Quayle acted like a brat,” he said.

Students were not bashful about how they voted. Mike Kern said he voted for Bush.

“He doesn’t smoke marijuana,” he explained.