As a member of the team of student volunteers who ran the Bishop Carroll mayoral election on Oct. 18, I can say it was a valuable experience. It was so inspiring to see students take interest in civic responsibility and democracy. Volunteers went around to homerooms and distributed and collected ballots. We counted them at lunch, and, by the 3:10 announcements, announced the Bishop Carroll mock election winner.
The results:
■737 voters (A 67% voter turn-out!)
■49 rejected ballots (Including one that had “GO NENSHI!” written all over it with hearts.)
■689 valid ballots (some people voted for dropped out candidates, such as Wayne Stuart and Graig Burrows, thus, they were no longer valid)
The winner: Naheed Nenshi, with 53% of the votes. (Nenshi was also the winner of the city-wide Youth Election, but with only 41% of the votes!)
In second: Ric McIver, with slightly more than 20% of the votes.
In close third: Barb Higgins, with 20% of the votes.
The remaining 7% of the votes were for the rest of the candidates.
So was it worth it? Students got really involved, having debates with teachers and supporting their own candidates by wearing certain colours or T-shirts. I wasn’t the only one who stayed up late on election night watching the news. My Facebook feed was a mess of election-related status updates and wall debates. Does this make a difference to the city? Yes. Not only are youth more aware of civic responsibility (and thus, more likely to vote when they are of age), but they influenced their families. As Metro News put it, “Many are crediting the youth vote for the dramatic increase in voter turnout during this week’s municipal election.“