Sent to [email protected] by Kimberly Wilder
Remember being a child, and receiving your weekly edition of Scholastic News? It was presented as real facts and important current events. Most children who read it are not old enough, or supported in critical thinking enough, to disagree with its vision of reality.
It is frustrating that for the Scholastic mock election, they only presented the choice of two candidates – the two, major party, corporate candidates.
But, as if the injustice of denying the presence of other candidates was not enough, it only gets worse. The Scholastic election did allow for write-ins. But, scholastic did not even publish full write-in results. Instead, they arbitrarily listed some of the write-in results. And, with that, only to prop up the other corporate candidate, Hillary Clinton, and then to mock the other choices for write-ins. This is not how to validate a child’s political expression. This is not a fair way to publish election results – even mock election results.
I think that parents, students, the public, and other candidates should demand that Scholastic somewhere provide information about all write-ins. Scholastic should set an example of the best practices for democracy and boards of elections: allowing for write-ins and publishing the results of write-ins.
And, next year, Scholastic should create a better system of ballot access. They should either do state-by-state ballots, and put on the actual candidates from each state that are on the ballot. Or, they should create a logical criteria, such as that any candidate who has the possibility of winning in the electoral college be put on the ballot. In this way, we will show our children a good and true example of democracy and respect for voting rights and ballot rights.
Peace,
Kimberly Wilderhttp://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3750501
Scholastic.com
ParentsKidsMore
Welcome to Scholastic.comIt’s official. At least for the kids! The Scholastic Presidential Election Poll results are in: Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama won with 57 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for Republican nominee Senator John McCain.
The poll was open to kids from grades 1 to 12 in Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines. Almost 250,000 (a quarter of a million) kids voted by paper ballot or online at www.scholastic.com/news
. The poll closed on October 10.
Since 1940, the results of the student vote have mirrored the outcome of the general election all but twice: In 1948, kids voted for Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman. In 1960, more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than for John F. Kennedy. In 2000, a majority of student voters chose George W. Bush, mirroring the Electoral College result, but not the result of the popular vote.
Obama and McCain weren’t the only vote getters. Four percent of the students voted for other people like comedian Stephen Colbert, and entertainers Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers. It was the highest percent of write-in votes in the history of the poll. Some even voted for themselves. Most of the write-in votes —11 percent of the 4 percent—were for Senator Hillary Clinton.
So why is a kid poll important? And does it mean anything come November 4? Kid Reporter Lya Ferreyra knows.
“Not only does [voting in the] poll give kids the experience they will need to vote in the future, but it allows them to have input on who should be the next President of the United States,” she said. “It gives kids a voice, which is important, but we won’t know the actual outcome until November 4. No one can predict that.”
Ferreyra and this reporter both appeared on numerous news programs this week to announce the poll results.
Results from key swing states are as follows:
Colorado: McCain 61% Obama 36% Other 3%
Florida: McCain 41% Obama 55% Other 4%
Indiana: McCain 51% Obama 47% Other 2%
Iowa: McCain 48% Obama 49% Other 3%
Michigan: McCain 40% Obama 57% Other 3%
Missouri: McCain 49% Obama 47% Other 4%
Ohio: McCain 47% Obama 51% Other 2%
Pennsylvania: McCain 46% Obama 50% Other 4%
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/023734.html
nice….
http://writein2008.blogspot.com/
Write-in requirements by state
My advice: do not write in anyone who is not a registered write-in option in your state (check first), unless your state counts unregistered write-in votes. Call them up first and ask them whether they will be tallying those votes, and whether they will provide an individual tally for write-in votes for each write-in candidate or a
total for all of them jumbled together. Ask when the write-in numbers will be available (in many cases, weeks or months later, when election
stories have been written and filed and most people no longer pay attention). Ask if there are any other odd rules E.G. mark the back
with an X and draw an arrow to the name, etc.
The Green Papers has a good list of registered write-ins by state (scroll down)
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G08/President-Details.phtml
politics1.com has a pretty good list.
http://politics1.com/p2008.htm
I can’t participate in the political process until I have a choice to vote for someone I agree with (90% of the time or more).
I don’t care if my candidate wins — I just want to vote for someone I agree with. As long as there are a few dozen other voters who also vote for him/her.
So I need a comprehensive list of alternative candidates or write-in candidates from which to choose. It needs to offer thousands of choices so I finally have a way to identify one I can agree with.
Without this, there is no way I can meaningfully participate in the voting process (other than to vote on a few ballot measures). I want very much to participate. I would be proud to vote for someone I agree with. But I see no purpose in voting for any of the standard candidates (even the third parties on the ballot) which I don’t agree with.
Even if one is the “lesser of 2 evils” there is little purpose served. The reality is that my one vote will not change the outcome, so the point is not to change the outcome, but rather, to just express my political philosophy. And none of the standard candidates expresses my belief system.
So where is there a comprehensive listing of all the alternative/write-in candidates, so I can make a true choice?
We’re having a mock election at my high school. (I registered with the Boston Tea Party, which I had to write in.)
The election is being conducted by the seniors in AP US Government. Today they had a debate. There were a bunch of Obama and McCain supporters and one Nader supporter and two Barr supporters (they finally got to debate McCain and Obama!). I didn’t get to go, but I heard that the Obama people were terrible, didn’t hear anything about McCain, heard that the Nader person did the best, and that the Barr people came off as a bit crazy.
Depends on the kids.
Elementary school:
If the Green Party had been running candidates back then, I probably would have voted for them, although at the time I supported the Democrats as did my parents. However, I only supported Democrats as the “lesser evil” and considered them to be sellouts even at the time, whereas my parents were more practical.
We also had a range of opinions in our family; my dad’s parents were the only ones who followed us to the US; his mom remained an unrepentant Communist, and his dad was a Reagan Republican (ironically, in Russia it was he who was the party member), although they both ended up voting for Clinton before they died.
Well this story doesn’t really matter because the kids will vote what their parents vote. When I was in elementary school I had stuff like crushes to deal with so I was not focused on presidental elections. The polling of 1st graders to 6th graders is unnecessary. Maybe 7-8th grade students start being ready to vote on their own. But high schoolers are where they should do the polls.