LIHU‘E — If children could vote, Hawai‘i’s political landscape might have been a bit different than what it is today. In the 2008 general election, some 120,000 Hawai‘i children cast their votes as part of a school program to help
LIHU‘E — If children could vote, Hawai‘i’s political landscape might have been a bit different than what it is today.
In the 2008 general election, some 120,000 Hawai‘i children cast their votes as part of a school program to help teach civic responsibility.
President Barack Obama would still be our president, as 70 percent of the children gave him their vote. But the Kaua‘i County Council would have a different makeup.
Council members Lani Kawahara and Kaipo Asing did not make the kids’ cut, giving way to Ron Kouchi and Ron Agor.
“Kids Voting Hawai‘i teaches the children to be socially responsible and to understand their government,” said Lynn Heusinkveld, the teacher in charge of the program at Wilcox Elementary School in Lihu‘e.
KVH Board Chair Linda Coble said every public, private, charter and home school student in Hawai‘i, from grades K-12, had the opportunity to cast votes in the program.
KVH, which started in 1996, is a non-profit, non-partisan, all-volunteer organization dedicated to enhance the civic education of students and get the children to vote when reach the legal age of 18, Coble said.
Students receive a password from one of their teachers, and cast votes in their family’s district and precinct number, just like their parents would.
Coble said the majority of Kaua‘i schools participated in the 2008 KVH elections and many are again this time around.
The voting period started Oct. 19 and will end Nov. 2, mimicking the absentee voting period. The ballots look almost the same as the ones from the real election. The KVH results will be posted online at 6:05 p.m. on Nov. 2.
The program, however, is not just about voting. Wilcox Elementary School students are videotaping interviews with candidates, editing footage, and as soon as it’s all done they will send the videos to different schools on Kaua‘i.
Heusinkveld said the children formulated the questions based on articles published in The Garden Island newspaper. Then they invited the candidates who they could find e-mail addresses for to participate.
All the candidates who responded are being interviewed by the young voters. In the meantime, the children are also operating the video cameras.
Next week the interviews will end, and the children will edit the videos before sending them to other schools.
“They are learning not only how to conduct an interview, but also how to film it and how to edit the final product,” Heusinkveld said.
The candidates who will be included in the final editing are Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., Ron Kouchi, Ken Taylor, JoAnn Yukimura, David Hamman, Jimmy Tokioka, Phil Sterker and Larry Fillhart, Heusinkveld said.
Go to www.kidsvotinghawaii.com for more information.
