For Immediate Release: October 30, 2008
Further information: Brent R. Carney (617) 514-1662, Brent.Carney@JFKLFoundation.org
Boston, MA – On Thursday, October 30, 2008, 88,111 students from 257 Massachusetts schools cast their votes in the 2008 National Student/Parent Mock Election and elected Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. Final election results have been tabulated as follows:
President of the United States:
Barack Obama (D): 57,920 (votes) 66.27%
John McCain (R): 25,580 29.27%
Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party): 307 .35%
Bob Barr (L): 362 .41%
Cynthia McKinney (G): 565 .64%
Ralph Nader (ind.): 1606 1.83%
Write ins: 1052 1.2%
For more information about the National Student/Parent Mock Election, including national results, please visit www.nationalmockelection.org.
Click here (pdf) for a list of schools originally scheduled to participate.
The National Student/Parent Mock Election actively engages students in state and national campaigns to emphasize the importance of voting and the power of their ballots. On October 30th, students and parents across the country cast their votes for the candidate they believe should be the next President of the United States.
The Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is the Massachusetts state headquarters for the Mock Election, and provided curriculum materials and activities to assist teachers throughout the state in preparing their students to vote. Each participating school chose a coordinator to be responsible for distributing the mock election ballots and materials to all students, teachers, and interested parents in the school, and reporting the election results to election headquarters at the Kennedy President Library on October 30.
Representatives at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum warned that the results are not and cannot be considered a scientific sampling. Among the mock elections of the National Student/Parent Mock Election, there is no uniformity of participation, age levels, preparation of voters, or voting strategies, and therefore, the election results are not representative of any voting trend of the American public. The results should not and cannot be used as an accurate prediction, or as the basis for an accurate prediction, of real election results.
Some schools also participated in position questions. Votes were tabulated for those schools participating in this portion of the election, and those results are listed below:
If miracles could happen, which one of the following Presidents would you want to lead the nation?Below are the results from this question. 19,931 students voted on this question.
George Washington: 3782 (votes) 18.97%
Thomas Jefferson: 665 3.33%
Abraham Lincoln: 5220 26.19%
Teddy Roosevelt: 1251 6.27%
Franklin Roosevelt: 1072 5.37%
Harry S. Truman: 120 .6%
Dwight D. Eisenhower: 196 .98%
John F. Kennedy: 4304 21.59%
Ronald Reagan: 1209 6.06%
Bill Clinton: 2112 10.59%
The government is limited to how much money it can raise through taxes. In your opinion, which one of these issues would government spending help the most? 18,077 students voted on this question.
The cost and quality of health care - 16.51%
The economy - 35.24%
The educational system - 9.88%
Global climate change and the environment - 16.26%
The high cost of energy - 7.03%
National security - 4.24%
The war in Afghanistan - 1.72%
The war in Iraq - 9.08%
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization.