Morgan Hill Burnett Elementary School students are preparing
themselves for the 2016 presidential election by practicing voting
for their school’s top student government candidates
electronically.
Morgan Hill
Morgan Hill Burnett Elementary School students are preparing themselves for the 2016 presidential election by practicing voting for their school’s top student government candidates electronically.
Third- and fourth-grade combination class teacher Katie Colon has created a program that allows third- through sixth-grade pupils at the campus to use a code number as a password to log on to a Web site that allows them to vote for those running for student council offices. The Internet site was created by Colon’s husband, Matthew, a software engineer.
Once students access the site, the names of students running at each grade level, including president, vice president and treasurer, appear with dots next to their names. Students click on their choice in each race, then scroll down to submit their vote.
Some students take just a few minutes to record their choices, while others take longer carefully deciding who will best represent them and be their leaders.
“I liked it ’cause it was easy to find who I wanted to vote for,” said 9-year-old Anais Mora.
Fabian Gutierrez, 9, thought voting electronically for his student representatives was “pretty cool.” He said he is familiar with computers, and voting electronically seemed like something normal.
Dane Weber, 10, said he didn’t make his choices lightly. When asked if he thought students chose the students whose names they recognized, or who they liked best, he shook his head adamantly.
“No, when you vote, you have to vote for someone you think will do a good job,” he said.
Colon said the Web site utilizes Google’s Gmail searching to quickly tally voting results based on student number, number of votes per candidate, per class.
The Web site has two copies of voting results, one using Gmail for quick vote tallying and the other written to an electronic log as a safeguard in case of technical issues.
The Web site restricts voting access outside of school hours, such as evenings, weekends and before and after the voting period, Colon said. The Web site checks for valid student numbers against a list of provided student numbers.
The students vote in the school’s library and computer lab, which is the same location as the official polling place for registered voters. Burnett students registered to vote by using their student identification number.
While talking about the mechanics of voting, electronic versus paper ballots, the students discuss the importance of voting in a democracy and how responsible voters gather information about candidates and issues before making choices, Colon said.
For the young teacher, the program is important because it allows her students to talk about voting and elections.
“As far as we are aware, we are the only school in this district with this new process,” she said. “In that regard, we feel we are giving our students a unique, hands-on view of the voting process.”
The implied “duh-factor” was obvious with many of the kids who take using computers and the Internet for a variety of functions for granted. The children seemed at ease with the electronic voting system.
Still, the students were curious about the controversy surrounding paper ballots over electronic ballots and the fact that, though there have been electronic voting machines in many real-life elections, there are many who are clamoring for the return of paper ballots.
