“Students Voting for Democracy” Election Results

The results are in!

Despite the fact that the district-wide student mock election results don’t match up perfectly with the real 2020 election results, the purpose of the exercise never changed: to teach students about local, state and federal government, how to research and make informed voting decisions, and about civic responsibilities.

Grades K-2 cast votes for U.S. President, grades 3-5 also voted on North Carolina’s Governor, and grades 6-12 studied additional candidate lists, including races for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Henderson County Board of Public Education.

Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students attending school in-person dropped their anonymous votes into colorfully decorated ballot boxes, and students in grades 3-12 and fully remote learners submitted votes through anonymous digital ballots. Here’s how the students voted:

Student votes matched actual election results* in the North Carolina gubernatorial (Roy Cooper), N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction (Catherine Truitt), U.S. Senate (Thom Tillis), U.S. House (Madison Cawthorn), N.C. Senate (Chuck Edwards), and Henderson County Commissioner (Daniel Andreotta) races.

In the presidential election, students cast 3,004 of 5,803 total votes for Donald Trump. In the local Board of Public Education election, student votes matched actual results for three winning candidates – Stacey Caskey, Blair Craven, and Kathy Revis. The fourth seat went to Florence Allbaugh in the mock election, whereas Robert Bridges won the seat in the actual election.

Thanks to the support of the League of Women Voters of Henderson County and the Community Foundation of Henderson County, this year is the fourth K-12 in-school election Students Voting for Democracy has hosted, with HCPS students participating in the 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 election years.

* UNOFFICIAL GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS – HENDERSON COUNTY as of Nov. 9