Grade 7-12 students at École du Sommet got into the voting spirit last week with a mock provincial election ballot with Student Vote on Thursday. Student Vote conducted mock elections in 800 schools leading up to the provincial ballot on Monday.
At École du Sommet, four students presented brief summaries of the four candidates for Lac La Biche – St. Paul – Two Hills with article clippings from the St. Paul Journal before students went behind the voting screen and dropped the mock ballot into a box.
Lac La Biche – St. Paul – Two Hills Wildrose candidate, Shayne Saskiw, won with a margin of six votes, 19 out of 45 ballots cast, or 42 per cent of the vote.
NDP candidate Phil Johnson came in second with 13 votes (29 per cent). Liberal candidate John Nowak came in third with seven votes (16 per cent) and incumbent MLA and Progressive Conservative candidate Ray Danyluk came in last with six votes (13 per cent.)
Student Vote aims to encourage students to follow politics and party priorities, said organizing teacher Carmen Dion. The project discussed the importance of voting and hopes to increase voter turnout, she added.
Results from the participating schools will be posted to studentvote.ca by Tuesday. The website reported 70,000 ballots received.
