Obama, Perriello win in Nelson High voting

By Erin McGrath

Published: October 29, 2008

If the students, faculty and staff from Nelson County High School ran the United States of America, Barack Obama would be the next president.

In a mock election held at the high school Oct. 23 by Social Studies teacher Jeannette Kinde, Obama beat out John McCain by 212 votes.

Tom Perriello was picked as the representative for the 5th district in the U.S. House of Representatives, beating out Virgil Goode by more than 100 votes and Mark Warner was picked for the U.S. Senate.

Kinde said they had a 78 percent voter turnout. All high school students, faculty, staff and administrators could participate in the mock election.

“We always try to make it as close to a real polling place as possible so they know that’s what you do to vote and that it’s not hard,” Kinde said.

Kinde said she has been holding mock elections since 1992, when she first came to teach at NCHS.

“I’ve definitely done it for every presidential race and most of the elections in between,” Kinde said.

The polls are open by 8:45 a.m. and close around 3 p.m. at the end of the school day.

Class by class, teachers bring their students to the old commons area in the high school, where Kinde’s classes set up the polling place.

Pink ballots in hand, students took a seat at tables set up with particle board partitions in the middle and use red, white and blue pencils to mark in their ballots.

More than 500 people participated in the mock election and at the polls, opinions on who should be president were mixed.

Junior Rodriquez Vest said he voted for Obama because he thinks “he’d be good and I think we need change in the world.”

Sophomore Katlin Ashley said she voted for McCain.

“I just like his policies mainly and my family is mostly Republican,” Ashley said. “It kind of influenced me.”