Rockville High Students: Class Prep Better Than Ads For Mock Election

VERNON, CT — Two things were clear as a mock state election began Wednesday at Rockville High School — the reviews in social studies classes were much more informative than candidates' ads and the exercise gave a real sampling of the real thing.

Students began taking to the polls to choose their preferred candidates for Connecticut governor and other assorted state offices Wednesday under the supervision of social studies teachers and Democratic Registrar Chris Prue. The voting was to continue Thursday.

The sample ballots were as close to the real thing as possible, so was the "registration" process. The ballot stations were real and so was the counting machine. The student s and teachers went over the process and discussed the candidates prior to the voting.

"If we get the kids involved now, they are more likely to stay involved," Prue said.

RHS junior Natalie Crowley was one of the first to get a ballot and seemed to take a quiet, deliberate approach to the voting. Crowley said the class prep was much more informative than most of the advertisements floating their was around television land.

Freshman Madalyn Saucier seemed to go quicker and said she went with familiar names. She, too, hinted to that ads were of little substance.

The consensus among students was that the ads have been "annoying."

The voting, in all, seemed to go smoothly and the students came up with a few interesting questions. One was a reflection on modern technology and involved the legality of taking an image of the ballot with a phone. Prue responded with a quick and adamant no. Live ballots are confined to the polling places, he said.

Prue said he had encountered that before with real-time voters. He also said with a slight chuckle that he has caught voters peeking around the partitions to see their neighbors' votes. That did not happen at RHS Wednesday.

Results at RHS should be tabulated by Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, Prue said.