Her school, Cumberland Elementary in Sunnyvale, is part of a nationwide "mock election" program that involved millions of schoolchildren in the current national election process. As part of the program, students from elementary through high school around the United States exercised their voting franchise on Oct. 28 by casting their ballots for president, senators and congressional representatives. Some schools even studied and voted on the various statewide propositions. In Santa Clara County alone, more than 60 schools participated in this student electoral process. Three were from Sunnyvale, including Cherry Chase School and Columbia Middle School.

At Cumberland the library became a voting poll on Oct. 28, with private booths and all, where the school's 460 students cast their votes. At the end of the day, the school sent its votes off to be tallied with those of other student voters around the country.

During this whole process, students at Cumberland learned about political parties; they registered to vote, made posters for their candidates and held debates; some even filled out absentee ballots.

A week before Mock Election Day, sitting primly on a small chair in Cumberland's library and supremely confident about her presidential choice, Kellyann explained why her candidate was the man for the job. "I'm going to vote for Kerry because my dad told me to." She said this with a brisk nod and the undeniable logic of a kindergartener. But Kellyann is not the only youngster whose presidential preference has been crystallized by parental prodding.

The same week, first-grader Matthew Burke walked around Cumberland wearing the badge "Kids for Kerry/Edwards." No prizes for guessing his choice for president. But Matthew likes to explain the reasoning behind his decision. "My mom told me that Kerry is better than Bush," he says with all the bravado that can be pack into that simple statement.

"Obviously kids at this age will be influenced by their parents' opinions," says Lisa Atkins, breaking into a laugh as she hears Matthew's rationalization.

Atkins is the librarian at Cumberland and the brain behind the school's election process. "By observing how these children vote, you can get a fairly good idea which side their parents are leaning towards," she says.

Atkin's decision to involve students at her school in the presidential election began much before she heard about the national mock election program. "I was in Washington, D.C., this summer with my family and we were at the National Archives Museum. There at the bookstore I picked up these wonderful books about elections and democracy that were written especially for young students. Then it dawned on me that with this year being the presidential election year, why not hold a pretend election for these children and have them vote for the president?" she says.

Atkins started discussions with school officials to implement the election process. And that's when the school heard about National Student/Parent Mock Election, a nonprofit organization that began 24 years ago with the goal of fostering and enhancing a greater sense of appreciation for America's democratic process. Over the years the program has been reaching out to millions of Americans, involving them in simulations of the electoral process. In the last two presidential election years alone, more than 10 million students, parents and teachers participated in the program and more than 40 million have been involved since its inception. This election season Cumberland joined thousands of other schools across the country in the election process.

Though Atkins is a part-time librarian at Cumberland, she is known for thinking out of the box. In the two years she's been with the school, Atkins has transformed the library into a paradise for young readers. Adorning the walls are pictures, paintings and information aimed at capturing the students' imagination. In the corner where she reads to younger students, there's a colorful mural of wild but comical animals. And in the middle of the library's tightly packed bookshelves stands a huge stuffed palm tree with a parrot and a few beanbags strewn around for students to lounge in while they read. "Usually a library is viewed as a place for kids who don't belong or fit in. But my vision has been to create an environment of fun and excitement where children want to come in, learn to read and check out books," Atkins says.

And as part of the mock election process, Atkin's library became the school's election central. For the past few weeks, the younger students have listened to her read from books and talk about basic concepts like democracy, election, the power of a vote and political parties.

Second-grader Michael Riskin can roll out words like Democrat, Republican, senator and legislator without hesitating. Michael says he particularly likes the word Democrat and is planning to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Kerry. But he's not entirely sure why he likes the Democratic party. He says he just likes the sound of it.

"Even with kindergartners, I talk about the job of a president, tell them that he is the commander-in-chief, how old one needs to be to become the president and the role of the vice president. And then we come down to the local levels where we talk about the governor and mayor," Atkins says. "Once, I remember asking them if the president could have any direct effect on them, and they all said no. So that's when I told them about how he can decide about the number of children in a classroom, and they were all surprised."

Atkins says the older students came in during lunch breaks to make posters for their parties and search the Internet for information about the stands taken by Bush and Kerry on various issues. They even made cardboard ballot boxes and voting booths. Posters on the walls leading to the library supported either Bush or Kerry and urged students to come out and vote on election day. These posters have a whimsical touch to them, as they come hand-painted with red hearts and glitter glue.

Though there were certainly Bush supporters who created posters, the day The Sun was at Cumberland, there were no vocal Bush supporters.

Amanda Beck and Gabby Aviet are fifth-graders who participated in the school's presidential debate. They were also Kerry supporters. "Bush had four years to do what he is promising to do now. And on top of that he is promising to cut taxes. So where will he get the money to do all these things that he keeps promising?" says Amanda, who recently became the student council president. She says that, as the school's student leader, she now understands how important it is to listen to other people's opinions and not just make overriding decisions for others.

Gabby is particularly happy with Kerry's stand on crime. "Kerry says he will put more cops on the street to protect people, whereas Bush is just letting deadly weapons fall into the hands of dangerous people. You can now go into a gun shop and buy an assault weapon. And I don't think that's right," she says emphatically.

To stress the importance of elections and voting, Atkins also made sure that all students in the school were registered voters. "I did not want them to think that they could just walk in on election day and cast their ballots. I wanted them to realize how important it is to register beforehand and be involved in the process," says Atkins.

So for every class she got a list of all the students and had them sign next to their names. Kindergartners were not exempt. They were asked to print their names on a sheet to acknowledge that they too were the school's registered voters.

While Atkins has been the driving force behind this process at Cumberland, the other teachers have been working with their students to smooth out the rough edges that are inevitable on an election day. "We practiced how to put an 'X' on our ballots," says Laurie Davidson, who teaches a kindergarten class. "Normally we tell students to put an 'X' on something that they want to remove or is wrong. But here they will have to mark an 'X' next to the candidate they wish to elect," she says, explaining the travails of the kindergarten world. A few fifth-grade teachers also acted as moderators during the debates.

For some, the constant election talk at school and at home became a bit of informational overdose. "One day I was watching the debates on TV with my parents. But after some time, I got bored and wanted to go to my room and play. But my mom asked me to stay put and watch the whole thing," says Kellyann Ye as she rolls her eyes.

As for the polling day on Oct. 28, Atkins had a few fifth-graders act as polltakers. They made sure all classes came in properly, checked their names against the "registered voters sheet" and were responsible for counting the ballots.

While first grade and above voted for president, senators and congressional representative for District 14, kindergartners just voted for president. "Though the mock election website suggests that we do propositions, we felt it will be too confusing for the children," says Atkins.

Like any normal election, Cumberland's program also included absentee ballots. One second-grade class filed into the library a week before the school's election day and cast their ballots into the cardboard ballot box. They had a planned field trip on Oct. 28. "Come what may, we can't miss a field trip for sure," says their teacher, smiling.

Mock Election Results

The results of Cumberland's election day were:

President

Kerry/Edwards—276 votes

Bush/Cheney—115 votes

Other—6

Senator

Barbara Boxer—141

Jim Jones—58

It seems there were 60-something students who didn't vote. Even at Cumberland there are problems with getting the vote in.

Other schools in Sunnyvale that took part in the mock election:

Cherry Chase

Kerry/Edwards—47

Bush/Cheney—13

Columbia Middle School

Kerry/Edwards—434

Bush/Cheney—135

National results of the mock election were reported in
percentages. With 3.5 million votes in on Oct. 31, these are the results:

Bush/Cheney received 51.7 percent

Kerry/Edwards received 43.7
percent

Nader/Camejo received 2.5
percent