A day before their parents got their opportunity, students at Westwood Elementary School in Thompson were among up to 20,000 across the province lining up to cast ballots of their own as part of Student Vote Manitoba 2016.
Elliot Linklater from one of the two Grade 6 classes that took part in the exercise of democracy, did double duty, serving as an assistant voting officer after his class had already filled out their ballots.
“They give us their ID card and we cross off their name and we give them one of these voting ballots with our initials on it,” he said. The initials, Linklater explains, enable the voting officers who supervise the placing of the completed ballots in the ballot box that the ballots are legitimate.
“It was hard at the start but if you keep doing it, it gets easier and easier,” said Deegan Campbell, who was working alongside Linklater.
After the voters cast their ballots they handed them over to voting officers Megan Szabo and Sadie Bishop.
“We have to check their card to see if they have the initials and then she has to take the cover off so no one puts the card in and then they put it in,” said Szabo.
“I thought it was just cool to practise and know what to do,” said Bishop.
Teachers were also part of the process.
“We talked about democracy and citizenship and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship include voting,” said Grade 6 teacher Carolyn Morrison. “That’s largely what we study in Grade 6 is Canadian history and then we look at citizenship and the rights of citizenship.”
Grade 4 teacher Eric Larocque also instructed his students on some of the basics of democracy.
“We spent some time learning about the different political parties and the candidates that are in our riding,” he says. “Then we spent more time explaining the process to voting. They made a little ID card so that they can show the assistant voting officer.”
One Grade 4 student who really enjoyed the process was Cole Stuart, who attended the April 13 all-candidates meeting at the Manitoba Metis Federation hall and, having just turned 10 recently, was probably the youngest political junkie there.
“I think it’s kind of good for me to know this now so in the future I know everything I can do there,” said Stuart, who has dreams of one day running for office in Thompson or perhaps even becoming prime minister, which he admits are not common in the fourth grade.
“I don’t even know one person that’s really into politics like me,” he said, though his mother was more than happy to indulge his passion when he asked to go to the all-candidates meeting. “She said for sure you could go there and learn and you could do it all for school.”
