Students Vote: It's So Easy!

Students Vote: It's So Easy!

But Glen Harris

City Government Reporter

Preferential voting was tried out for the first time in Ann Arbor Wednesday. And it worked.

Sixth graders at Eberwhite Elementary School put the new mayoral balloting system to its first test and the results left City Clerk Jerome S. Weiss a bit more optimistic about the upcoming city election when it will be used for real.

The Eberwhite students voted for fictitious candidates for city council and the mayoral race. Of the 92 ballots cast and 2 were invalidated, one for each of the races.

Weiss conducted the mock election as much as it will occur April 7. Four student--Tony Martin, Pippi McKinley, Eric Glieberman and Judy Weiss--were selected by sixth grade teacher Jo Owens to serve as precinct workers.

The clerk gave detailed balloting instructions only to these four students and they answered any questions from their classmates about the balloting, just as election workers will do at the polls.

The class was then told to only read the voting instructions on the ballot and mark their preferences. The instructions must have been clear, since the only problem the youngsters seemed to have was how to fold their baths after they were marked.

The only spoiled preferential voting ballot turned in contained an "X" in the circle beside the preferred candidate's name instead of the number "1".

The ballot contains three candidates names and most students selected their first, second and third preferences, which is legitimate.

The students also had no trouble switching from using numbers on the mayoral ballots to using "X" marks on the city council paper ballots.

The key to the difference in the balloting may lie in the advice of Barbara Shalit, another sixth grade teacher. "This is one of those times when all else fails, follow the directions," she told the youngsters.

One fear of city officials have been that older voters who have voted on paper ballots in the past may skip reading the ballot instructions and mark the mayoral candidates with an "X" which results in that vote being tossed out.

The Eberwhite test was the first of several being conducted at city schools to see what problems voters 18 years and older may have in the city's general election. Other experiments will be at Tappan, Pattengill and Clague schools. In all, about 500 children will cast ballots before a report is prepared for mayor and council.