Samo mock election

On Nov 8, the day of the nationwide election, Samo hosted its very own mock election. This event, put on by the entrepreneurial concepts hands on (ECHO) program, was a civic engagement project to help give back to the community.The ECHO program is part of a business management class where the students learn how to operate businesses like the Vikes Inn, Vikes Café and three tier events. As part of their program, the classes collectively decide on a community project, and as the election day grew nearer, they decided to hold a mock election.“We decided on a mock election as our project because we thought it would be interesting to see how students vote compared to the rest of the nation,” Ennie Leppanen (’18) said.With 70 percent of Samo students voting for Hillary Clinton, there is a drastic difference between the nationwide and our mock election.“It’s important for students to experience voting before they are 18 so they can be less clueless about what they are voting for,” Delena Tiku (’18) said.A lot of students believed that it was beneficial to have the mock election because it gave them the opportunity to learn about what measures were on the ballot as well as the procedure one has to go through at the polling booth. The results for the election went to the California Secretary of State along with thousands of other schools in California. This is a collective effort to show students that their voices matter as well as insight into what the prospective future of our state and nation will be.“I think the resounding results showed the solidarity of the Democratic party in a liberal area like Santa Monica,” Dani Roth (’17) said. “A lot of students took this seriously as is evident by the results and a very clear majority cared about having a say.”The ballot measures were chosen based on their relevance and appropriateness for high school students. However, many students were unimpressed with the choices.“I know a lot of people were wondering why only a couple of the less interesting props were featured on the ballot,” Isey Lyons (‘18) said. “Also when I voted on the propositions, some of the titles and brief explanations were a little confusing and some didn’t fully explain what the prop would do.”Most of the chosen propositions were about schools and taxes which all have to do with students and their future, but there were many others that had a much more direct impact on the near future. With all the propositions passing the Samo election, it begs the question: Did people actually know what they were voting for or did they only vote for the sake of voting? The fact of the matter is that it’s something we will never know, much like in a real election.