|
Kids Voting to give youth ballots this Election Day
By Carey King
 Get ready, parents: You may be used to your kids begging for cheap gizmos in the check-out aisle or for trips through the fast-food drive-through. But are you ready for them to beg you to take them to the voting booth?
This Nov. 2, students countywide will head to the polls alongside adults thanks to Kids Voting, a non-partisan, non-profit organization whose goal is to get more young Americans involved in their democracy.
In each of Jackson County’s 18 precincts, 5- through 17-year olds will vote on special Kids Voting ballots, deciding for themselves which candidates should make it to public office.
The student election results will be released to the media and published in The Sylva Herald for comparison with actual adult tallies.
A Smokey Mountain Elementary student ties his “wish for America” to a tree kids, parents and teachers planted at a Kids Voting kick-off event Sept. 23. Nearly 100 red, white and blue ribbons now wave in the breeze with the tree’s leaves, and each ribbon carries a vision for America’s future – wishes for peace, prosperity, safety and brotherhood. “The purpose of the event was to encourage civil responsibility in the student body and to reach out to the families,” said SMES Kids Voting coordinator Joyce Albright, who also passed out voter registration forms to eligible adults. Communities with active Kids Voting programs have shown a 3 to 5 percent increase in adult voter turnout, the “trickle up” effect of students dragging their parents and grandparents to the polls.
“For kids, the point is ‘my vote gives me power,’” said county Kids Voting education coordinator Cindy Thompson. “It shows them that you have to participate to make it work. That’s how the political process goes.”
Kids Voting began out West in 1988 after three Arizona businessmen took a fishing trip to Costa Rica. There they discovered that the Central American country had the highest voter turnout of any Western democracy – a rate of 80 to 90 percent – and were told the large numbers were due in part to a civics curriculum that encouraged students to cast mock ballots when their parents went to the polls.
When the friends got back to the States – where voter turnout averages about 50 percent – they decided to start something similar and launched a pilot project in Phoenix.
Since then, the Kids Voting program has spread to all 50 states. In 2003, nearly half a million North Carolina schoolchildren participated; this year, the number of collaborating counties has more than doubled to nearly 20.
Thompson and Dave Baker are coordinating Jackson County’s effort, which so far has included three teacher trainings for public, private and homeschool educators on the Kids Voting curriculum – a series of K-12 activities intended to prepare students for their trip to polling places.
The curriculum aims to help kids understand how voting works and why it’s important, not direct which candidates or issues they vote for.
“Some parents think, ‘Oh, they’re programming my children.’ But no, we’re not,” Thompson said. “The goal is to teach process, not politics.”
Correlated to N.C. social studies, math and language standards, the activities are hands-on, interdisciplinary and engaging. Kindergartners learn to tally votes. Third-graders explore campaign propaganda by creating their own bumper stickers. Sixth-graders analyze political cartoons, while high school freshman take the literacy tests once given to African-Americans who tried to register to vote.
Through repeated simulations, students experience the struggle past generations have gone through to secure the right to vote, and come to understand that voter apathy steals away the strength of a democracy.
“Kids Voting really teaches the importance of taking responsibility,” said Joyce Albright, a seventh-grade science teacher and Kids Voting coordinator at Smokey Mountain Elementary School.
The school kicked off its Kids Voting program Sept. 23 by inviting parents and students on campus after-hours to share their visions of what the United States could be. They planted a tree, then tied red-, white- and blue-ribboned “wishes for America” to its branches – wishes such as national peace and prosperity, and safety for soldiers in Iraq.
Fairview Elementary Kids Voting coordinator Lynne Johnson has her students voting every week on matters of importance to third- and fourth graders, such as whether report cards are necessary, or if year-round school makes sense.
“They love it. It empowers them,” Johnson said. “Their vote shows them the importance of breaking a tie.”
A key element to the program is getting families involved, as both schools have done by sending voter registration forms home. Teachers are also assigning homework that requires kids to talk politics with their parents.
“A real big part of this thing is to get families to dialogue,” Johnson said.
For the program to succeed, parents must make time with their children to discuss current events and politicians and to gather information from newspapers and television, organizers say.
“This is a second chance for parents to become involved and informed, even if they haven’t been before,” Thompson said. “A lot of us will do things for children we’d never do for ourselves.”
Research has shown that Kids Voting participants are not only more likely to read newspapers, but to actually vote when they turn 18. A “trickle up” effect has also been documented – that is, an increase in adult voting due to the fact that students are dragging their parents and grandparents to the voting booth.
“Communities with an active Kids Voting program have seen a 3 to 5 percent increase in voter turnout,” Thompson said. “It’s reenergizing the voting process from the bottom-up.”
The student balloting will begin when “one-stop” absentee voting starts Oct. 14. It will continue until the polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.
Published results will include information about what schools and grade levels participated, a move Thompson hopes will “encourage some healthy competition.”
High school students will also have the opportunity to vote online, as North Carolina has been selected as one of five sites across the nation to be a part of doubleclickdemocracy. com, an effort to help tech-savvy kids busy with extracurricular clubs, jobs and sports.
Students will log on with a randomly-generated registration number, then cast their vote between Oct. 19 and Nov. 2.
“I’m hoping that by working with Kids Voting we will increase our voting turnout now and in the future,” said Thompson, who’s now in her second year of sitting on the Board of Elections. “We have the most awesome poll workers in North Carolina and they’d like to have more customers.”
Organizers’ next step is to get volunteers to staff Kids Voting tables at each precinct polling place.
To offer help, contact executive director Dave Baker at 586-1598.
Voter apathy
Did you know that:
• One of the biggest political problems in the United States today is the lack of voter turnout? In 2000, a presidential election year, only 50 percent of eligible North Carolina voters voted. Only 57 percent of Jackson County voters did.
• North Carolina ranks 11th in the nation for voter registration but 47th for registered voters who vote?
• Only about 13 percent of Jackson County voters voted in the June primary?
• In North Carolina, less than 53 percent of 18-24 year olds are registered to vote, compared to more than 80 percent of adults 25 and older?
• Less than 50 percent of adults can tell the number of Supreme Court justices (nine) or what the Bill of Rights includes?
• Only 55 percent of adults know the number of senators from each state (two) and who their own senators are (in North Carolina, Sens. Elizabeth Dole and John Edwards)?
Some states have made voting more convenient by allowing people to vote early by mail or by “one-stop” absentee voting. Also, in compliance with the 1993 National Voters Registration Act, nearly all states allow people to register to vote by mail or at Division of Motor Vehicles offices.
Source: Kids Voting N.C. and Jackson County Board of Elections
|
