Samo students participate in statewide mock election during classes and lunch
Samo’s Regional Occupation Program (ROP) held a mock election on Oct. 30 to inform high school students about the upcoming election with the help of the Associated Student Body (ASB).According to the California Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s website, the California Mock Election was created to encourage students to become active voters once they are old enough to cast a ballot. Mock elections were open to middle schools, adult schools and high schools and a total of 674 schools participated.“The mock election provides an outlet for high school students that are not legally allowed to vote to have a voice and to explore issues,” Activities Director Bryn Boyd said.According to ROP teacher and mock election coordinator Anita Kemp, 73 percent of students voted for Barack Obama as president and 79 percent for Dianne Feinstein as U.S. Senator. Samo students also passed all state Propositions except Proposition 32, Proposition 33 and Proposition 40. Though these results differ from the California state results, Kemp said that Samo’s results have been factored into the California Mock Election numbers.Senior and coordinator of the mock election Rahim Jiwani said that students worked efficiently to set up the event.“The mock election went really smoothly,” Jiwani said. “We hoped to achieve a general understanding of what students would vote for and show them how to [vote] in real life.”English teacher Meredith Louria said she was impressed with how the mock election was run.“The actual day that we went and voted went very smoothly, and the coordinators had the election really well set up in the cafeteria and the students moved through quickly and efficiently.” Louria said.Activities Director Bryn Boyd said that she hopes the mock election helped students see the effect they can have on national decisions and made them more interested in the issues of the election.“I hope that [students] learn the importance of their civic duty as far as voting,” Boyd said. “I hope that [students] learned that it is important to educate themselves on the issues and the candidates so that they know what the candidates stand for, represent or how they would impact their life.”mytarr@thesamohi.com