Too young to vote, old enough to have opinions

When your age holds you back from participating in the presidential election, there is little incentive to follow the campaigns. But at Mountain View High School, age is not a factor.

“Another social studies teacher here got together and planned out a mock election,” said government teacher Mike Huff said Monday. “We had each of our classes go around and visit every first-period class in the school, and then we also had an opportunity for students that didn’t have a first period to come by and vote.”

“We just said, ‘Just fill in a bubble,” said AP government student Grace Cole. “One of two choices, one was Obama and one was Romney.”

Huff estimated that over 900 of the school’s 1,200 students voted in the mock election, and he hopes the excitement to vote continues after they graduate.

“If you ingrain a little bit of civic duty into them in high school, you know maybe they’re going to be more likely to vote down the road,” said Huff.

Some students at Mountain View agree.

“We are the future,” said AP government student Justin Germain. “We might as well get an educated start now, so we can have a good, educated future.”

Huff’s class predicted Mitt Romney would win the mock election, because they believe the school is more conservative. They did, however, think the numbers would be close, and they were right.

The votes were tallied around noon on Tuesday, and Mitt Romney won the mock election by over three percent. Romney had 51.6% of the votes, and Obama had 48.4%.