Students took to the polls
Schools participate in mock vote to engage youth in territorial politics
Elaine Anselmi
Northern News Services
Monday, November 30, 2015
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
While they may not be old enough to officially have their say in an election, students from across the NWT cast their own ballots in the territorial election and, as it turns out, they weren't far off from the rest of us.
Angel Moses, a Grade 7 student at Chief Julian Yendo School, was a part of the vote on Nov. 23 that saw Shane Thompson elected as Nahendeh MLA, paralleling the results of the territorial vote. - photo courtesy of Blair Sellars |
"Overall, the goal of the program is to get younger people who are under the actual voting age interested and engaged in voting so that when they do turn 18, they are knowledgeable," said Dan Allen, research and communications manager for Civix, the organization that runs the student votes.
"And we hope that they will vote for real when they can."
In Wrigley, students at Chief Julian Yendo School learned about the election and electoral processes in class, before lining up at their own poll to cast a vote in the student election, said principal Blair Sellars.
"In our social studies, we learn about current events so that was a good way to incorporate some hands-on learning in conjunction with the election," Sellars said.
"It was something that's current for them and something that's meaningful because they see it happening in their community at the band office."
In their Nahendeh riding, the students had a good sense of the political environment, voting in line with constituents to bump incumbent MLA Kevin Menicoche out in favour of Shane Thompson.
"When we did the student vote, I didn't really go into detail about the campaigns that any one of the candidates were running, so it was entirely up to them and that was their choice - there was no influence from the school, really," Sellars said.
"It's kind of interesting that the students' vote somewhat paralleled the actual results."
In general, Allen said the student votes run across the country tend to be well in line with actual results. One reason Sellars suggested could be that the students hear their parents discussing the election at home.
Not every region in the territory had mirrored student and offical votes. In Nunakput, the students gave incumbent MLA and Speaker of the 17th Legislative Assembly Jackie Jacobson a strong show of support with 15 votes - the closest candidates behind Jacobson garnering six votes each. In the Nov. 23 election, Herb Nakimayak edged Jacobson out by a very narrow margin of four votes - so close, a recount is required to verify the results.
At Angik School in Paulatuk, where Nakimayak is from, senior high school teacher Robert Lazar said having a candidate from the community made the process more exciting for the students.
"One of the things we were trying to assess was to know the candidates, know what they bring and what they could add for (the students') interests," Lazar said.
"We were working on selecting a candidate to choose and also working on understanding the democratic process and that they have a voice in the community and their opportunity to vote is their ability to show that voice."
At Range Lake North in Yellowknife, Grade 7 and 8 students cast their votes for the candidates of their own ridings, voting for all eight regions of the capital, said teacher Heather Jelinski.
The group had taken part in a student vote during the federal election and Jelinski said they were enthusiastic about also having a run at territorial politics.
"They got really excited about the whole process," Julinski said. "We talked about platforms and the main issues they're trying to address."
Returning Great Slave MLA Glen Abernethy even stopped into the class on short notice to talk about priorities during the election and take questions from the students.
"I think the students really appreciated being able to go home and talk about it with their parents and their families," said Jelinski.
Further to Allan's point, Jelinski said the process really worked to engage students in politics and encourage them to be active in elections when they're old enough to vote.
