Greene Publishing, Inc. Photo By Ashley Hunter, September 29, 2016
Supervisor of Elections Tommy Hardee spoke to the students at Madison Creative Arts Academy about the importance of voting, as well as the way voting helps organize society. Pictured is Hardee addressing the fifth through eighth grade classes in the MCAA gym.
Greene Publishing, Inc. Photo By Ashley Hunter, September 29, 2016
The office of the Madison County Supervisor of Elections set up poll booths so that students could take part in the voting experience while keeping it as realistic as possible. After ballots were passed out, students casted their vote, and placed their marked ballot in a machine that calculated their votes.
Ashley Hunter
Greene Publishing, Inc.
275 ballots were cast at Madison Creative Arts Academy (MCAA) as students were able to learn about and participate in the process of an election.
The school was visited by Supervisor of Elections Tommy Hardee, who brought out ballots, poll booths and a voting machine to show the students how an election process works.
After a discussion that pinpointed the importance of everyone casting their vote, the secrecy of the voting process and the value of having a voice in who our elected officials are, Hardee opened up the polls to the students.
Younger students got to vote on their favorite ice cream flavors, with a range of 'candidates' from Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to Birthday Cake.
Older students got to vote on their favorite book genre, such as non-fiction and fantasy.
Each participating student was given a ballot with a list of their election's 'candidates,' and were shown how, in a legal election, the ballots are placed in secrecy sleeves to protect the privacy of voters.
After getting their ballots, students filed into the poll booths, marking their choice on their paper, and placed their vote into the hands of the Supervisor of Elections.
Afterwards, Hardee again encouraged the young voters to talk to their parents about voting, who they were planning on voting for and why their parents wanted to support that candidate. Hardee also stressed that this information is private and should not be freely shared outside of their family.
After calculating the votes, it was discovered that chocolate chip cookie dough had won the ice cream election with a sweeping 55 votes. In the book genre election, the fantasy genre was the winning candidate, with 67 votes.
Total MCAA votes:
Ice cream:
Chocolate chip cookie dough – 55 votes
Birthday cake – 35 votes
Plain chocolate – 30 votes
Vanilla with chocolate syrup – 28 votes
Book genre:
Fantasy – 67 votes
Realistic fiction – 31 votes
Non-fiction – 15 votes
Historical fiction – 14 votes