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St. Paul's Students go for Kerry and McCollum St. Paul, MN - November 4, 2004
St. Paul school students gave a landslide victory to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in the Kids Voting St. Paul election held on November 2.
Of 16,127 ballots cast, 11,655 were cast for John Kerry for 72 percent of the total. Republican incumbent George Bush received 3,146 votes for 19.5 percent of the vote. Ralph Nader of the Better Life Party received 307 votes for 1.9 percent of the total. Votes for other candidates, unmarked and spoiled ballots accounted for 1,019 ballots cast, 6.3 percent of the total.
St. Paul students also voted overwhelmingly to return DFL incumbent Betty McCollum to Congress. McCollum received 7,930 votes for 49.1 percent of the vote. Republican Patrice Bataglia received 4,176 votes for 25.8 percent of the total. Independent candidate Peter F. Vento received 1177 votes for 7.2 percent of the vote. Perhaps because the presidential contest overshadowed the Congressional contest, 2,633 ballots (16.3 percent) had no candidate marked.
The student election was organized and conducted by Kids Voting St. Paul, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. The organization's Executive Director Bobbi Megard called the Kids Voting St. Paul election "successful in every way you could measure it."
"Our goal is to influence adult voter turnout by teaching K-12 students about voting and providing them the opportunity to practice voting in an election modeled after the official election," Megard said.
The participation of students in Kids Voting St. Paul's 2004 election was incredible according to Megard. "More than 1 out of every four school aged children in St. Paul participated in Kids Voting, We more than doubled our student participation from 2002"
According to tracking data, students participating in Kids Voting St. Paul represented at least 110 different public, charter and private schools within the city. In addition, 84 students who were home schooled participated.
Megard noted that the Kids Voting St. Paul election was a community effort between government, business sponsors and community volunteers. Each of St. Paul's 104 election precincts hosted a Kids Voting booth. Secondary students were able to vote online if they chose to. More than 700 volunteers helped conduct the Kids Voting St. Paul election.
Complete, school-by-school results of the election are posted on the Kids Voting website at www.kidsvotingstpaul.com <http://www.kidsvotingstpaul.com>.
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