Americans are a week away from deciding which candidates to pull the lever for on Election Day, but today high school students in Galesburg are weighing in on who they think should run the country for four years.
Mock elections were held today at Galesburg High School during lunch hours.
Many students casting ballots aren’t eligible to vote on Nov. 8 but GHS Student Election Authority, Haley Bennewitz says the exercise gets students used to what to expect when they vote.
Bennewitz and fellow Election Authority Emily Bruington, both freshmen in Craig Hillier’s civics class were elected themselves by classmates to head the proceedings.
Students had to register last week in order to vote on races including for President, 17th U.S. Congressional seat and 74th state legislative district.
Bruington tells WGIL the GHS vote is important even it doesn’t have an electoral impact.
“It gives you an idea of how the actual process works so you don’t go into your first election totally shocked and you don’t know what to do,” Bruington says. “It teaches you that you do have to register and if you don’t there are consequences to that.”
426 students registered, or a little less than a third of the student body, which is up from the high school’s mock election for the 2012 Presidential election, when President Barack Obama won in a landslide over GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
Bennewitz went on to explain that to register students had to go online to take a survey by last week.
The survey asked information of the mock voters to see if they met criteria the election authorities had laid out, such as anyone voting must have attended GHS for at least 30 days.
Results are expected to be released tomorrow.
