Sam Gurwitt photo
Susan Bysiewicz.
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz made a pitch to get out the vote in a different kind of presidential election Tuesday, one that won’t affect who sits in the White House next, but that might spur young soon-to-be voters to political action.
In Hamden, that election has already begun, as high school students cast their ballots in a mock presidential election that began Monday.
Bysiewicz stood outside the Keefe Community Center Tuesday in a light drizzle with Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona. Behind them sat a ballot drop box. Though they were not there to highlight the box that has been slowly collecting the absentee ballots of Hamden voters, perhaps one day the initiative they were there to plug will fill that box with more ballots.
Hamden Director of Arts, Culture, and Special Projects Julie Smith said she had chosen to hold the press conference at the Keefe Center because she wanted people to know about the ballot drop box there. It sits on the George Street parking long side of the building, just outside the entrance.
Hamden High School is one of over 60 schools in the state that are participating in a mock presidential election this week and next. Statewide, about 4,500 students have registered to vote in the mock election.
Julie Smith: held presser at Keefe to highlight that there is a ballot drop box there.
Bysiewicz said she is excited about the effort because it helps young people become interested in politics. Civics classes, she said, often motivate high schoolers to one day run campaigns or run for office themselves. The mock election could help do the same, she said.
“The idea of the program is very simple,” she said. “To engage our young people in voter participation and civic engagement while they are in high school. They will start off on a great foot and make sure that when they are adults, they will be casting their real votes.”
Though online-only mock election is now a statewide effort, it began in Hamden. Hamden resident Matthew Fitch, who runs the election management company Merriman River Group, was going to donate the election just to Hamden High after having a conversation with Smith.
When Bysiewicz heard about it, she liked the idea.
“Then the lieutenant governor decided we were going to donate it to everybody,” Fitch said. Soon, he was coordinating a statewide mock election for high schoolers
Hamden High has done mock elections before. It did one four years ago. For another mock election prior to 2016, teachers brought actual old voting booths to school so they could approximate the real experience for students, said district Director of Social Studies Jennifer Vienneau.
This year, not even paper ballots were an option, let alone voting booths. Instead, students are voting through an online database.
Fitch said that almost 40 percent of those registered, or about 2000 students, have voted so far in the state.
Hamden High Senior Michael Nista programmed the election system. He said that students at the school were already discussing the race before they got their own chance to “vote,” and are doing so more now that Nov. 3 is creeping closer.
Merriman River Group
The electronic “ballot.”
This time around, only presidential candidates are on the electronic ballot. Many schools have students from multiple state senate and state house districts, so including state and local races would have been too complicated. But Bysiewicz said that eventually, she would like schools to do mock voting for local elections. While national elections get more hype, teaching students about local elections can help get them involved with politics in a more immediate way.
“If you can get young people involved in a municipal year, you hook them for life,” she said.
Fitch said he could not share the preliminary results of the election since they have not yet been released, but he did say they are often good predictors of how the actual race will go. He said that results from a high school tend to reflect the actual results in the town at large.
Hamden High students will be able to vote until Friday. Other high schools also vote this week, while some are voting next week. Once all the votes are cast, Bysiewicz’s office will release the results.
Watch the full press conference below.
