ORIGINALLY WRITTEN STAFF
If it was up to Hillsboro Elementary School students, George W. Bush would be president by a landslide.
HES students were among the millions of young Americans voting online for president in this fall’s Youth-e-vote Internet referendum.
According to Bruce Winkler, technical instructor at the elementary school, students cast 221 votes for Republican Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney, 39 for Democrat Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, 4 for Reform Party candidates Pat Buchanan and Ezola Foster, and one vote for Green Party candidates Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke.
Across the country, Bush/Cheney won with 56 percent of the vote, followed by Gore/Lieberman 38 percent, Nader/LaDuke 4 percent and Buchanan/Foster 2 percent.
The Youth-e-vote program, which allows elementary, middle and high school students across the country to cast a mock vote online for president, senate, governor, and key national issues one week before the national election, is the world’s first national online youth voting with individual registration numbers and secure ballots.
Youth-e-vote is a non-profit project of FreedomChannel.com, a non-partisan provider of political interactive media.
The project is powered by election.com, the global election company that conducted the first legally binding online public election earlier this year in the Arizona Democratic primary.
Winkler explained the voting process and something about each of the four presidential candidates listed on the ballots to students prior to voting time.
HES students give Bush an electronic A-OK
