Students make educated decision

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/04/2011 (5313 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

YOU’D think it would be a scandal if we reported that 500,000 federal votes won’t count.

Disappointing, surely, especially since most of the 500,000 voters are pretty much guaranteed to be informed voters — not something a lot of people voting Monday can claim.

But a scandal?

Alas, these 500,000 election-keen Canadians aren’t yet old enough to vote, but vote they either have or will — Thursday and today — at 4,300 schools across Canada, including 237 in Manitoba.

It’s the fourth federal election for the Student Vote program, which supplies teachers across Canada with classroom material for lesson plans on democracy and the parliamentary process, and culminates with a vote using the candidates on the ballot in the riding in which the school is located.

About 60 per cent of the voters are in elementary grades, the rest in junior high and high school, said Lindsay Mazzucco, chief operating officer of Student Vote.

“The students have predicted (actual) governments in the past. In 2008, they elected a Conservative minority with an NDP Opposition,” she said.

The Green party does considerably better among underage electorates than among the 18-and-up crowd, portending better things for party leader Elizabeth May, if she can hang in there for another generation.

The Student Vote program is an election simulation for youth under the voting age coinciding with official elections. The program combines classroom learning, family dialogue, media consumption and an authentic vote on local election candidates.

“This is our fourth parallel federal election, and the response from schools has been phenomenal,” said Taylor Gunn, chief election officer of Student Vote. “Classroom teachers are taking up the most important task — teaching citizenship to their students and inspiring the future of Canadian democracy.”

Students will take on the roles of deputy returning officers and poll clerks and host a Student Vote Day where students will vote for the official candidates running in the school’s electoral district.

Their vote follows a series of in-class and school-wide activities where students learn about political parties, platforms and local candidates.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca