Vote, Vote, Vote!

The results are in! At least, the ones from the 6-8th graders' mock election.  The 6th graders spent a half an hour setting up our classroom as a polling place.  We had three booths (desks surrounded by gym mats), two registration tables (one for last names A-H, and one for I-Z), and a tally table (our lab table).  Each of the 7th and 8th graders had a job to do, and most of them were very professional about it.

Two people went to tell the classrooms it was their turn to vote.  The voters would come in and sit in the waiting area.  They would go up to the registration table, have their name crossed off by an 8th grader, and be handed a ballot and a pencil by a 7th grader.  Then, a 7th or 8th grader would let them know which polling booth was open (the people manning the polls would raise their hand).  The student "guarding" the poll would remind the voter not to write his/her name on the ballot. 

Some of the 1st graders had trouble reading the words on the ballot, so the poll assistants would help them read the names.  After voting, the voter would fold his/her ballot, stick it in the official ice cream pail, and return to the waiting area.  When the bucket got full, I would carry it to the tally table (partially hidden by a tri-fold board) where three 7th and 8th graders were waiting to count the votes.  One girl pulled out the ballot, recorded the vote for cats vs. dogs, and passed it down to the next girl (who recorded chocolate vs. vanilla), who passed it down to the final tallier who recorded Obama vs. Romney.  This last individual put an X on the ballot and put it in a different ice cream pail.

When all the votes were in, we put my classroom back together, and the 6th graders made bar graphs of the results.  They also calculated percentages of the votes cast for each choice.  We presented the results to each classroom that participated right before the end of the day.  52 people voted and the results are as follows:

Cats vs. Dogs
Cats= 10 [19%]
Dogs= 42 [81%]

Chocolate vs. Vanilla
Chocolate= 24 [46%]
Vanilla= 28 [54%]

Obama vs. Romney
Obama= 10 [19%]
Romney= 41 [79%]
Other (write in)= 1 [2%]