Grauer Students Vote In 2024 Mock Election

From Jessi Brown, Government Teacher:

Every 2 years since 2010, the Government class has spearheaded a school-wide Mock Election to educate our students on the process of voting in an election. The class uses the resources provided by the California Secretary of State's office, and the Seniors in the class do their best to educate their peers about what's on the ballot. This year, the Government students made videos for each proposition and a slideshow for each of the candidates to compare their stances on issues that are important to voters. Students only voted on candidates for president and senate and on statewide ballot measures, not local candidates or initiatives. Even still, there were 10 propositions on the ballot this year and many of them were quite complicated.
 
We hosted the Mock Election last Tuesday, October 29th in front of Meyer Hall. All students received a sample ballot a day or two before the mock election. 75% of the student body chose to vote (not accounting for absences). 100% of seniors voted in the mock election and those eligible voted for the first time in the actual election!
 
RESULTS: Kamala Harris earned 60.5% of the votes for President and Adam Schiff earned 68% for Senate. Of the 72,000 students across the state that participated in California's official mock election, 48.7% voted for Harris and 53.5% voted for Schiff. Interestingly, 6% of California students and 7.6% of Grauer students voted for Robert F Kennedy Jr., despite him dropping out of the race on August 23. The Grauer School's results (along with the results of hundreds of other schools that registered) were not counted towards the statewide totals because we were unable to submit results by October 8.
 
At Grauer, 9 of the 10 propositions passed. Prop 33 (rent control) did not pass, with 53.8% voting no. Prop 3 (constitutional right to marry) passed overwhelmingly with 93% voting yes. The remaining propositions passed with the following percentages: Prop 2 (school bond) 73.8%; Prop 4 (climate bond) 63%; Prop 5 (voting threshold for local housing bonds) 62%; Prop 6 (prison labor) 62.6%; Prop 32 (minimum wage) 59%; Prop 34 (prescription drugs) 59.6%; Prop 35 (Medi-Cal funding) 73.8%; and Prop 36 (criminal penalties) 52.3%.  We encouraged students to abstain if they didn't understand a proposition or if they weren't sure how they felt about it. Nearly 17% of students abstained from voting on Prop 34, for example. Abstaining was a good choice given that the average readability score on the propositions this year in California was a 16 (meaning that you'd need a reading level of at least a 4th-year college student to comprehend them).

The Senior class is very happy with the level of engagement with the Grauer Mock Election. We will share the results of the exit polling once more students have responded. The goal of the Mock Election was not to make every student incredibly knowledgeable about every proposition, but rather to make them feel invested in the voting process, to make them more interested in hearing the real results, and to make them excited to vote when they turn 18. Hopefully, it also led to some great conversations around the dinner table!