John McCrae Get the Student Vote Out

As we know, a federal election in Canada occurred on September 20, 2021 in order to elect members of the House of Commons into the 44th Canadian Parliament. Schools around Ottawa have been stocked with polling stations, ensuring that everyone gets a say in their government. In addition to hosting a polling station, John McCrae decided to host a “Student Vote” to allow the school to get a sense of what it is like to participate in a democratic election.

Students were passed out ballots that featured all of the potential candidates who could be elected for the Nepean riding. They could anonymously vote for any of the candidates and would hand in their ballots as a class. The process of the student vote worked almost exactly like how a real election would, although some restrictions were in place due to safety protocols and most of the electorate was not yet 18.

The results are out for everyone to look at, and it speaks to Canada’s political climate and what many of the Canadian population wants for a leader. The student vote boasts results that are different to the official ones. But how different are they exactly?

You can find all of these results at John McCrae SS Student Vote 2021 (google.com)

Just like Liberals’ win in the official election, The Liberal Party of Canada also managed to take the majority vote in John McCrae at 34.7%, with the NDP a reasonably close second at 28.2% The Conservatives came in third at 16.8%. with the Green Party and People’s Party coming in at 9.5% and 3.8% respectively. 7.0 percent of the ballots were “spoiled”, which are ballots that were written in an invalid form and could not be counted (e.g. boxes were marked with something other than a checkmark or x, people wrote on the ballots rather than voted, etc).

The entire website shows all the results from each individual class and grade, students are encouraged to check it out anytime they would like to see what their fellow students at John McCrae voted for.

Along with Mme Rochette and Ms. Wingrove,, Mr. Roy, one of the Student Vote organizers, said when asked about the results, “Overall, the Liberal victory in this year’s Student Vote was not incredibly surprising to me - in previous schools where I have helped to organize Student Vote, the school results have been largely similar to real-life results. Ultimately, students are influenced by a lot of different considerations when it comes time to cast a ballot, but across the board, the personal views of family, friends, and loved ones tend to consistently be the largest driver of how people choose to vote”.

There were some discrepancies between the actual election results on September 20 and the Student Election results at John McCrae. Mr Roy recommends taking a look at “some of the causes of these differences in belief might be in order to try and better understand how to make younger voters feel more engaged in the democratic process”.

Going forward, Mr. Roy would hope that students can “return to a Student Vote format that feels even more like a proper election day, with students able to cast their ballots at a centrally-run polling station, complete with ballot boxes and privacy screens… but regardless of what the day’s proceedings actually looks like, I think the whole experience is incredibly valuable and worthwhile as all of us work together as a school community to better understanding of responsible citizenship.” “I would be thrilled to help organize Student Vote again in the future! I’m so fortunate to have had such a fantastic team to help make this happen, with Ms. Wingrove and Mme. Rochette helping with so much of the planning and preparation; I’m also grateful that even with many current health and safety regulations in place at school that we were still able to work with our school administration team to find a method of voting that maximized both learning and safety for all involved. In future, it’d be wonderful to return to a Student Vote format that feels even more like a proper election day, with students able to cast their ballots at a centrally-run polling station, complete with ballot boxes and privacy screens… but regardless of what the day’s proceedings actually looks like, I think the whole experience is incredibly valuable and worthwhile as all of us work together as a school community to better understanding of responsible citizenship.”