Students voted in a mock election on Oct. 30 that foreshadowed Senator Barack Obama’s sweeping victory in the presidential race. In the campus election, organized by the Youth Community Service (YCS)/Interact club, Obama’s victory was even more lopsided. He received 681 votes to Senator John McCain’s 74 votes. Among the other candidates, former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney had 31 votes, Ralph Nader had 28, Bob Barr had 26 and Alan Keyes had 9.

Students favored all but four of the propositions on the California ballot. Propositions 4 (abortion), 6 (criminal justice programs), 8 (same-sex marriage) and 11 (redistricting committees) were defeated. Proposition 1A, a bond measure funding a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, passed in the mock election as it did in the real election. Still, some voters were skeptical on the source of the fund. “In our current economic crisis, I don’t feel like we have $9.8 billion to spend,” sophomore Holt Bowmer said.

Many students did not vote on every ballot measure. “What surprised us was that a lot of people voted [on] Prop 8 but omitted the rest of the props,” junior YCS/Interact president Vivian Shen said. The measure to ban same-sex marriages failed by a large margin in the mock election, but passed with 52.5 percent of the vote on the California ballot.

Shen said the election was a chance to get students involved in politics. “It gives them the opportunity to show who they support,” she said.

Only 839 students cast ballots. “Not enough people voted, which is my complaint about all elections,” social studies teacher John Fredrich said. But this year, a record number of voters cast ballots in the national election, including many new voters.

Eligible students also had a chance to vote in both the real and mock elections. “I’m 18 and I got to vote [for real],” senior Michael Rowland said on Nov. 5. “I helped elect Obama!”