Arkansas students choose Barack Obama, the state lottery, Boozman and Pryor

Berryville Intermediate students got a chance to voice their opinions on the U.S. Presidential, Senate, and Congressional races when the voted in a mock election that was designed to educate them on the voting and election process. The school cafetorium was set up as the polling location officiated by Missy Jackson, a dedicated school volunteer and experienced Carroll County election official. According to election coordinators Linda Winkle and Donesa Mann, students had to present their drug-free pledge cards as identification when signing in at the polls to make the experience as authentic as possible. Photo courtesy of Donesa Mann

BERRYVILLE -- Students across Arkansas and the nation overwhelmingly elected Senator Barack Obama president of the United States during mock elections last week.

At those elections, Arkansas students cast nearly 50,000 votes for Obama and some 34,000 votes for Senator John McCain.

Arkansas students also voted in favor of a state lottery, and against an act that would have prohibited individuals and non-married couples from fostering or adopting children.

They elected Congressman John Boozman to a repeat term, and re-elected U.S. Senator Mark Pryor.

The results from the Arkansas Statewide Student/Parent Mock Election released last week included votes from approximately 185,000 students from some 500 schools statewide.

According to Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, "Student mock elections are a valuable exercise in democracy for our future voters and civic leaders."

He said mock elections serve to educate students from kindergarten to 12th grade on the imporatance of voting by actively involving them in a full-fledged campaign and national election.

"Every election year," he said, "we seem to have more participants and more enthusiasm for the process."

Students and staff at Berryville's Intermediate School bucked state and national trends when they elected McCain to the White House.

Youngsters in grades three through five, along with school staffers, elected the Republican senator by casting 290 votes for him, as compared to 156 votes for his Democratic rival Obama.

Those figures differed greatly from statewide and national mock election results in which Obama won Arkansas easily with 55 percent of the vote, and gave him a "preliminary" 64 percent lead over McCain's 32 percent in national elections.

Only "preliminary" results were available at the national level as of press time because balloting was to continue through Tuesday.

Some of the statewide final mock election results from the Arkansas Secretary of State's office are as follows:

President

Barack Obama 49,088

Cynthis McKinney710

U.S. Senate

Rebekah Kennedy 9,795

Mark Pryor 20,615

U.S. Congress

A.N. Tomlinson 5,681

John Boozman 10,459

Amendment #3 (Lotteries)

For lotteries 18,556

Against 6,847

Act #1 (Prohibiting adoption or foster parenting by individuals or non-married couples)

The Berryville Intermediate School limited its voting to the presidental race, and senate and congressional seats.

The results from its mock election are as follows:

President

Cynthia McKinney 4

Ralph Nader 3

John McCain 290

U.S. Senate

Rebekah Kennedy 209

Mark Pryor 228

U.S. Congress

A.N. Tomlinson 151

John Boozman 290