THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 4, 1996 TAG: 9611020012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 63 lines
In a first in Virginia, Norfolk and Virginia Beach shoolchildren from kindergarten through 12th grade will go to the polls tomorrow to cast their ballots in a Kids Voting Virginia election-day exercise paralleling the real-life presidential-year election.
How many youngsters will cast ballots is anyone's guess, but the ones who do will vote on the same candidates and issues as their elders. Their Kids Voting paper ballots will be read by school-system scanners used to read test answers. The Kids Voting results will be reported to the news media along with regular election results.
Troubled by the long, disheartening decline in voting in local, state and national elections, business and civic leaders and other private-sector citizens set out several years ago to acquaint American schoolchildren with the obligation incurred by every citizen in this constitutional democracy. That obligation is to become an informed, thoughtful, active participant in the political process.
The Landmark Communications Foundation, The Virginian-Pilot and Virginia Power are major sponsors of Kids Voting Virginia, whose curriculum was embraced this year by all Norfolk public schools and tested in five Virginia Beach schools. The curriculum stresses information gathering, critical thinking and discussions about candidates and issues, culminating in a trip to a Kids Voting Virginia voting booth at an actual precinct polling place.
Twelve-hundred teachers have exposed 43,000 Norfolk and Virginia Beach children to the Kids Voting Virginia curriculum. The hope is that most of these children will vote.
Kindergarten through 8th-grade youngsters may go to the polls only if accompanied by parents or guardians - and the hope is that the adults also will vote in the real election, making citizenship a family affair. The 35 Kids Voting stations in Norfolk will be open before (6 a.m. to 9 a.m.) and after (2 p.m.-7 p.m.) the school day. The 11 Virginia Beach Kids Voting stations will be open continuously from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. (For a listing of Kids Voting stations, see the public-service advertisement elsewhere in this newspaper).
Training schoolchildren to become voting citizens is a practice that is spreading as swiftly as a prairie fire. Last Tuesday, 5.77 million schoolchildren cast ballots in the 1996 National Student and Parent Mock Election. Bill Clinton won 54.6 percent of the students' votes and majorities among students in 40 states, garnering nearly 500 mock electoral votes out of a possible 538. Dole got 32.5 percent of the students' votes and the 38 mock electoral votes of nine states.
Nothing scientific about the outcome of the mock election, as sponsors of the 16-year-old ritual emphasizes. The really important news in the mock election is that 5.77 million votes were cast. Kids Voting USA - the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that now licenses Kids Voting groups in 40 states and the District of Columbia, touches 4.5 million students through 200,000 teachers in 6,000 schools.
The more the healthier. Roughly half of eligible citizens vote in presidential elections; about 30 percent vote in local elections. That's unhealthy.
All registered voters who haven't already voted by absentee ballot should turn up at the polls on Tuesday. Experience tells us that the turnout will fall far short of the ideal. But Kids Voting Virginia could dent voter apathy in Norfolk and Virginia Beach this year. Come on, kids, let's hear it for good citizenship and constitutional democracy! Take an adult to the polls tomorrow. by CNB