On Nov. 4, as 121 million voters throughout the nation were making their way to the polls to cast their vote for the next President of the United States, Jacksonville High School students were doing the same, and with the same result.JHS students elected Barack Obama with a very slim margin – only four votes – 318 to John McCain’s 314.
That Tuesday, I spoke to Lauri Elam’s fifth period modern American history class, a group of juniors.
Most of the students were saddened by the fact that they could not vote for real this year.
“Every vote counts,” said Destiny Deramus, one of the students who would have liked her own vote to count in the general election.
A sizeable group of the students, however, didn’t vote in the mock election, including Raven Spence, who voiced her feeling that neither major candidate was right for her.
“I just didn’t feel like I liked either of them enough to vote for one of them,” she said, adding that she felt McCain would have the same policies as George W. Bush and Obama would raise taxes.
Knox Newell voted for McCain, seeing him as the lesser of two evils, citing Obama’s plan to spread the nation’s wealth around as the deciding factor.
“I figured people in America that are well off have done that through hard work,” he said.
Patrick Daugherty and Maya Mahiuddin both voted for McCain based on his years of experience in the Senate, while Morgan Drummond voted for him more because of his running mate.
“I just like him and I like Sarah Palin a lot. I just think it’s unique that a woman is running for vice president,” she said.
Change was the theme among those who voted for Obama.
“I think it’s time for a change in this country and I’m just tired of seeing the old policies fail,” said Yasameen Al-Hamdani, citing Obama’s call for a tax cut as one of her reasons because she believes it will help middle class Americans.
Katheryn Casey liked Obama’s views, mainly his idea of affordable healthcare.
“I think it’s important because a lot of people who may not be able to afford healthcare plans can get treated differently. If something happens, they may not be able to pay for what they need to get done,” she said.
Several of the students also spoke to their parents about their choice for president and, at least among this small group of students, the majority agreed with their parents.
“My mom is very pro-life and so am I,” said Ryan Fussner of his vote for McCain. “That was her main reason and my dad doesn’t like the idea of universal healthcare.”
Maci Hall also voted for McCain like her parents, but didn’t ask why they were voting that way.
“I just asked them who they were voting for and they said McCain. I didn’t really ask they why,” she said, adding that her vote was based on liking McCain’s ideas better than Obama’s.
Lisa Hall voted, like her mother, for Obama.
“She likes his views on getting out of the war,” said Lisa, adding that she has family members overseas in Iraq.
Nationally, the popular vote was not quite as close as the JHS mock election. At JHS, Obama didn’t quite earn the majority, only taking 49 percent of the vote to McCain’s 48.7 percent. Across the country, however, he took 52 percent of the popular vote and McCain took only 46.
In Calhoun County, more than 4,000 more voters turned out to vote in this election than voted in 2004, 517 of those additional voters were in Jacksonville.
Westside Baptist Church’s polling station saw 109 more voters than four years ago, which may have contributed to swinging that polling station in favor of the Democratic candidate. Obama took that precinct with 680 votes to McCain’s 340.
McCain carried Jacksonville’s three other polling places. At Glenwood Meadows, it was McCain 670 to Obama’s 536. At the National Guard Armory, McCain had 879 to Obama’s 493. At Jacksonville First Baptist, McCain had 1,103 to Obama’s 436.
Calhoun County voted as expected with 32,326 selecting McCain and 16,325 choosing Obama.
