Emmaus High School Elects Barack Obama

Special to Emmaus Patch By Chrissy Cilento, Emmaus High School Senior

Even though the majority of students at Emmaus High School aren't old enough to vote, they made their voices heard in a school-wide election held Monday.

Each student voted in his or her Social Studies class, then the votes were tabulated in an Electoral College style. Four electoral votes were given to classes with more than 25 students, three to classes between 20 and 25 and two to those with under 20 students. The ballots the students filled out included four options: President Obama, Mitt Romney, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and N/A for students who did not wish to vote or who did not want to vote for the specified candidates.

After all the votes were tallied, President Obama came out the winner. Although he only won 45.7 percent of the popular vote, he received about 63 percent of the possible 405 electoral votes. In second place was former Gov. Mitt Romney with 36 percent of the popular vote and 37 percent of the electoral vote. Jill Stein came in third with three electoral votes and 3 percent of popular votes, while Gary Johnson had no electoral votes but 4.4 percent of the popular votes. Interestingly, 11 percent of the ballots were checked as N/A. 

This experience gave EHS students an opportunity to learn first-hand the way in which presidential elections and the Electoral College work. In addition, it allowed students to make speculation about who will win the national election and compare the results of our school to the results of our country.

And for those students who, like me, aren't old enough to receive their "I voted!" sticker, the mock election was a way of letting us express our beliefs and making our votes heard, even if only on the smallest level.

Chrissy Cilento, a senior at Emmaus High School, plans to study journalism in college. She is a periodic contributor to Patch.