Students Get Education In Politics Kids Voting Program Aims To Get Youngsters, Parents Involved

After a short, clean campaign that focused on responsibility and drinking fountains, Laura Palmer, Stacey Orlando and Faith Stafford were swept into office Tuesday.

The three Fernan Elementary students are the new student body officers in an election that had a nearly 100 percent voter turnout.

Laura, a fifth-grader who was elected president with 249 votes, said she and classmate Ashley Knutson, who was also her opponent, crossed their fingers as the results were announced over the school intercom.

“We’re really good friends, so we didn’t care who won,” the smiling victor said.

The student elections were scheduled to coincide with the official kick-off of Kids Voting, an educational program designed to teach children civics and get more parents to the polls. Tuesday’s vote doubled as a dry run for the Nov. 7 city elections, when many children will accompany their parents to the polls. The children’s votes will be counted separately but tallied at the same time as the official ballots.

Kids Voting promoters hope that the enthusiasm of young voters will not only stay with them throughout their lives, but also rub off on adults and improve voter turnout. They claim that voter turnout increases by 3 percent to 9 percent in cities that have a Kids Voting program.

On Tuesday, parents and teachers at Fernan tried to make the student elections as real as possible, going so far as to borrow real voting booths from the county.

Kindergarten students stood on chairs to reach the official adult-sized voting booths placed in three different “precincts” inside the school.

Parent volunteer Mary Thorburn-Henry leaned over shoulders, explaining the ballot to the neophyte voters.

After voting, they cast their ballots and were given an “I voted today” badge.

In other schools around Kootenai County Tuesday, children wore red, white and blue clothing and filled out voter registration cards to kick-off the program. At Ponderosa Elementary, the students paraded around the school and hung wishing stars on a tree, with wishes for their school.

Fernan Elementary had a wishing tree, too. Each class voted on a wish to hang on the tree.

“No Litter,” implored one.

The newly elected student body leaders will work on bringing some of those wishes to reality.

A central issue that won Laura several votes was the lack of drinking fountains outdoors.

Teacher Linda Bennett, who acted as an adviser to the candidates, warned them not to promise what they could not deliver.

So when she gave her campaign speech Monday, Laura said she could not promise that orange soda would flow from drinking fountains, but she would promise to try to get fountains installed on the playground.

The speech appeared to have an impact, according to an exit poll of Nancy Isen’s third-grade class.

Several students mentioned the drinking fountains, although only a few could remember exactly which candidate brought it up.

Bobby Erbland said he voted for Laura because of the fountains and for secretary candidate Johnny Nelmer because “Johnny’s funny.”

Faith thought Johnny wasn’t too serious about the race because he paraded around the playground during recess with campaign posters stuck all over himself.

Johnny narrowly lost to Faith, 196 to 197 votes.

The Kids Voting program’s concept and educational materials come from Kids Voting USA Inc., a non-profit organization based in Arizona.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Color Photos