St. Albert students will get to go to the polls early next week as part of a national program to get people voting.
Some 15 St. Albert schools are holding mock polls Monday as part of the Student Vote program. The national initiative is meant to teach students about the electoral process.
Voter turnout has always been an issue in Alberta, and one of the biggest reasons for youth not voting is a lack of familiarity with the electoral process, says Dan Allan, spokesperson for CIVIX (the national charity behind Student Vote).
Student Vote has students learn about polls, campaigns and voting during an actual election. Schools will often debate local issues and hold forums with their local candidates as part of the program, which wraps up with a mock poll featuring the actual candidates in the school’s riding.
The hope is that teaching students about elections when they’re young will make them informed, engaged voters as adults, Allan says.
About 874 elementary and secondary schools in Alberta are taking part in this year’s Student Vote, Allan says – that’s 36 more than the 2012 provincial Student Vote. Fifteen of these schools are in St. Albert.
Paul Kane teacher Brandon Andreychuk says his Social 10 and 20 students have taken a detailed look at all five provincial party platforms in recent weeks as part of Student Vote. Students have taken the national Vote Compass survey to see which party platform best suits them and made posters to explain each party’s policies.
On Monday, those students will serve as returning officers and run a mobile and stationary poll for the mock election.
“We ordered 1,000 ballots and we hope to kind of get close to the full student population.”
Some 75,000 students are expected to vote in the student polls, Allan says. The results of these polls will be kept secret until after the actual provincial election results are released.
St. Albert riding returning officer Katherine Zalasky says she’ll also have a couple of dozen students working the official polls on Election Day this Tuesday.
“They’re keen, they’re on time and they can’t even vote yet.”
Visit studentvote.ca for details.
Morinville’s TV station scored a big scoop Friday with an exclusive interview with the leader of Alberta’s NDP.
MCTV reporter and Grade 10 student Julie Otte taped a live interview with Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley during a visit to the school’s studio Friday morning.
MCTV is a television news program produced at Morinville Community High School by students.
The crew had been brainstorming story ideas earlier in the month when someone suggested that they try and get one or more of the provincial party leaders in for an interview, explained MCTV teacher Greg Boutestein.
On April 8, they asked the NDP, Wildrose and PC campaigns if they wanted their party leaders to appear on the show, Boutestein said. (They didn’t ask the Alberta Liberals since they didn’t have a candidate in Morinville.) The NDP were the only ones who said yes.
The crew decided to tape a special episode Friday to accommodate Notley’s visit (they’d filmed their regular episode earlier in the week) and had the school’s Social Studies classes come up with questions to ask her.
While the crew has interviewed politicians for news segments before, this was the first time they’d done a live Q&A with one, Boutestein said.
“It gives the kids an amazing opportunity,” he said of the interview.
“I said to Julie, how many students you think get a chance to sit down with a political leader for five to 10 minutes and ask questions one-on-one?”
Otte asked Notley about issues such as education, health care, tax hikes, and student job creation, in addition to more casual topics such as her favourite book.
Notley mentioned the book Lamb by Christopher Moore in response to the latter, adding that she had also picked up the Hunger Games series during the campaign.
“I’m very attached to the Game of Thrones series right now, and it’s very irritating that it’s taking so long for (author George R.R. Martin) to write the next book,” she said.
Otte said Notley’s answers were “very user friendly, for lack of a better word,” and easy to understand.
“I was really, really nervous,” she said of the interview.
“You only get this kind of chance once.”
The interview should be posted on YouTube by this weekend, Boutestein said.
MCTV segments can be viewed at boutestein.net.
