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Local Students, Future Voters Hold Mock Election

In a couple of years, they’ll be voting for the next President of the United States. In the meantime, they practiced and picked their own. On Thursday, Oc...

In a couple of years, they'll be voting for the next President of the United States. In the meantime, they practiced and picked their own.

On Thursday, October 9th, 2014, Juniors and Seniors in Mr. Jack Achs' American Government Class held an entire campaign season in about an hour.

The class broke up into four groups of campaign teams and represented four different political parties - Libertarian, Democratic, Green, and Communist. Each group then presented a political poster, a political ad, and faced off in a debate.

"The purpose is to give the students a hands-on experience of what it is to run a campaign," said Mr. Achs. "There's an opportunity for them to actually run their own campaign and actually look up several political ideologies and then debate the issues."

The debate centered around hot-button topics like abortion, immigration, gay marriage, ISIS, the environment, and the economy. Students in the "audience" were also able to ask questions and challenge the candidate's knowledge of their political party.

Afterwards, students got to vote for their favorite candidate. Mr. Achs says that's where it becomes interesting.

"Do you select the President on ideology or do you select them on their personality? Usually, in my experience, it's the personality that wins out."

The results were in in a matter of seconds and the winner was the Democratic candidate. Mr. Achs says he has another class that will hold another election with other political parties involved including Republican,m Socialist, and Independent.

"This is very important for them to know that they have a say in our government process and then to vote. The number one thing you can do is vote and participate in the Democratic process."

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