Mock Primary Held at Northwestern

WINSTED - Students at Northwestern High School made a unified statement after the polls closed on their mock primary election Tuesday - Barack Obama is their man for president.

Gearing up for the primaries, students have been learning about all of the presidential candidates in their social studies classes over the last few weeks. Many students conducted online research at sites such as votehelp.org, where users can answer 10 to 28 questions and be paired with a candidate who has similar views.

Social Studies teacher William Sullivan said the students were "well-informed voters" by the time they cast their vote on Tuesday.

In all, 698 students voted in the mock primary, with more than 71 percent voting as Democrats.

Obama received 404 votes out of 495 democratic votes. Clinton received just 66.

On the Republican side, Huckabee pulled in 71 votes out of 203 cast. McCain came is a close second with 57 votes.

Sullivan said he was not surprised by the results of the election. He said many of the students agreed with Obama's "stand on issues" and favored Huckabee for his pro-life viewpoints.

During the elections, exit polls were conducted on every 10th voter to see what issues were most important to the students.

Statistics were broken down by gender and grade level. While no significant differences were noted by grade level, 74.3 percent of females preferred Obama over all of the other candidates. Clinton received just 8.6 percent of the female votes.

Nikki Penn, 16, was one of the Obama supporters Tuesday.

"I think we have similar issues and the things he stands for, I stand for, too."

Penn said that she is against the war and felt that the entire movement was "not very thought through."

She also had a very specific reason for not supporting the first female presidential candidate.

"I don't think the world is ready for a women president yet. I would like to see her [win], but I don't think her issues are as strong as other peoples," said Penn.

Evan Douaihy, a senior at Northwestern, also supported Obama.

"I thought he had a very clear stance on all his issues and had a better personality," said Douaihy.

As for why he did not support Clinton, Douaihy felt it came down to leadership.

"I don't like how she is stuck on how she has experience. Just because she has experience doesn't mean she would make a better leader than someone else."

Overall, 24.3 percent of the students felt that Iraq was the most important issue in this election. The environment came second with 12.1 percent, followed by 9.5 percent for the economy and 8.1 percent for health care. Terrorism was seen as the least important issue (6.7 percent).

During the exit polls, students were also asked if they felt the country was heading in the right direction. Over 36 percent said "no." Less than 30 percent of students felt the country was in good shape.

The primary elections were held on two old push lever voting machines donated from the town of Barkhamsted. The last time Northwestern held a mock election was in 1992.

"Ross Perot won that one," said Sullivan.