On Monday, November 2nd, Greenwood students of all ages were given the opportunity to make their voices heard by voting in a mock election hosted by Mrs. Elmore’s AP Government and Political Science class.

The class is currently learning about political campaigns, so to take the lesson a step further Mrs. Elmore put the students at the head of the governor candidates’ campaign offices. The class was split into two teams, one for each major candidate: Team Conway and Team Bevin, each tasked with convincing the student body to elect their candidate.

Students created and put up posters around the school, some promoting their own candidate, and others attacking the opponent.

“It was like a real election,” says Devin Dettman, an AP Government student. “In order to get our candidate elected, we had to make both negative and positive ads.”

Like real-life campaign offices, they also branched out into multimedia advertisements, including video commercials both promoting their own candidate and attacking the opponent.

AP Government students created two video ads. On the left, and ad in support of Matt Bevin. On the right, one in support of Jack Conway.

Students in all grade levels were allowed on Monday to vote for their favorite candidate using iPads in the cafeteria. They had a choice between Democrat Jack Conway and Republican Matt Bevin, although there was a third candidate in the actual race, Independent Andrew Curtis.

The next day, adult voters elected a candidate in the real-life state election, and AP Government students compared the results.

Republican candidate Matt Bevin proved victorious by a significant lead in reality, while in the mock election Jack Conway was the landslide winner. Now AP Gov students can analyze the results and consider why there was such a significant difference between the two elections.

Let us hear your voice as well by filling out The Daily Chomp’s ballot:

In addition to giving the students hands-on experience with political campaigns, Mrs. Elmore also taught them how to be responsible voters. She stressed both the importance of being informed and in actually voting.

“People will say ‘my vote doesn’t matter,’ so they won’t vote,” says Devin Dettman. “What they don’t realize is that when everyone does that, their votes actually start to matter–in a bad way.”

Although there was a favorable turnout in the mock election, in the state election almost two thirds of registered voters did not show up to vote. Devin thinks that may have had a hand in the results of the election, as low voter turnouts can often skew the results in one party’s favor, according to thinkprogress.org.

“I personally can’t wait to vote,” says Elizabeth Guthrie, another AP Government student who is not yet voting age. “And this project helped me to become a more informed voter.”