A mock election conducted among K-12 students in America from August to October has resulted in Hillary Clinton winning by a landslide over her opponent Donald Trump. Over 153,000 kids participated in the said election, which has been periodically done since the 1940s.
It was Scholastic that facilitated the mock election among the country's K-12 students via its Scholastic Student Vote. The result showed that 52 percent of the kids picked Hillary Clinton as U.S. president, while 35 percent went with Donald Trump. The rest at 13 percent picked out other names, such as Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders. AOL reports that the kids also picked Kanye West and Spider-Man as their choice for president.
According to USA Today, the 2016 presidential mock elections also showed that Hillary Clinton was the top choice among school kids in the states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio. Kids from Republican strongholds like Alaska, Idaho, Texas and Utah also went with Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, most kids from Iowa and the rest of the red states voted for Donald Trump.
The mock election was done via online voting or through snail mail, with the kids sending in their paper ballots. The objective of the practice is to promote civic education among school kids.
Scholastic notes that since doing this in the 1940s, the students have only been wrong about the actual winners two times. Children voted for Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman in the 1948 mock election, where Truman actually won. They also voted for Richard M. Nixon over John F. Kennedy in the 1960 mock election, where Kennedy actually won.
An expert, Christopher Ojeda, notes that the result of this mock election doesn't reflect the choices of their parents, who would actually be casting their votes on Nov. 8. The parents might have some influence on what their kids know about the elections. However, kids also have their personal preferences and can think independently.
