Over 1,700 Kids Voting students from Reno County visited official polls today and cast ballots on the same candidates as adult voters.
The kids elected the Republican Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket for president and vice president over Democratic President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden by 57 percent to 39 percent. Other, third-party candidates received 4 percent.
In other races, K-12 students in the Hutchinson, Buhler and Nickerson-South Hutchinson school districts, plus Holy Cross Elementary School, voted to re-elect Republican Tim Huelskamp to the U.S. House in an uncontested race.
In other state races, students elected Terry Bruce to the State Senate for the 34th District, Jan Pauls to the State House for the 102nd District and Carol Moore to the State House for the 114th District. Youth also elected Keith Schroeder as Reno County District Attorney.
Only high school students in Hutchinson had the opportunity to vote on the three ballot questions. They voted yes for all three, including the LGB ballot issue.
“The excitement at the poll stations, the stories about their classes, and the number of students asking me where as well as when they could find out the results thrill me. I am excited that I could play just a small part in this memory-making experience,” said Ryan Diehl, Kids Voting Reno County Task Force co-chair.
“People came out in full force for this election. Enthusiasm flowed throughout the poll stations when the people were voting and at the Hutchinson News as the ballots were counted,” said Leslie Shea, program co-chair.
This was the second election for the Kids Voting program in Reno County. In 2010, 816 students here voted in the gubernatorial election.
Kids Voting USA is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that teaches K-12 students about the election process, cultivates a voting habit beginning at an early age and makes voting a parent-child experience, with the goal of improving voter participation in the adult population. Kids Voting Reno County is a project of the Reno County Young Professionals, Hutchinson Rotary Club and The Hutchinson News. Students from Reno County Communities That Care and the Hutchinson Community College’s Honors Program played a huge role on Election Day in different capacities.
All Reno County polling locations within the boundaries of the three school districts – 20 locations in all – had a Kids Voting station staffed by volunteers where kids could take a student-adapted ballot, cast their votes in a voting booth and drop their ballots into a ballot box.
The local Kids Voting ballots were counted tonight by middle school, high school and college students, the results totaled and reported to Kids Voting Kansas, which compiled statewide results.