Incumbents take a beating in RC Middle School election

by Peter Jakey Managing Editor

It was just like the real thing. As registered Rogers City voters exercised their Constitutional right to vote in the Rogers City High School gym ? down the hallway — students from Vicki Bruder?s sixth and seventh grade Social Studies classes from Rogers City Middle School conducted a mock election. According to sixth grader Corey Schaedig ?the classes ran the mock election to learn why voting is important, how the political process works, and the steps to voting in our Democratic nation.? They took it seriously, too.

AT ONE OF the election stations, one of the student/election workers could not find fifth grade student Aaron Phillips? name in the voter registration book. Phillips seemed concerned when the teacher said he was not going to be able to vote unless he had registered a few weeks before. Eventually, his name was located. He nodded his head ?yes? when asked if it would have bothered him to not vote. All the middle school students, and most of the adults in the middle school and high school, registered and voted in the election. There were 47 adults registered in all. The ballot included the races for governor, U.S. Rep., State Representative, Probate Judge, and all five proposals. ?I?ve learned that there are more than two parties,? said Matt Yarc

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THE STUDENTS had two voting booths with patriotic colored curtains to step behind. After finishing, students would hand their ballot to someone at the final station, who placed the ballot in a box to be counted later. According to the final tallies, there was an upset in the governor?s race as Dick DeVos, if the fifth through eight graders at RCMS were deciding, would have ousted incumbent Jennifer Granholm, 89 to 65. Don McLennan would have edged incumbent Ken Radzibon for Probate Judge (68 to 61), while local farmer Howard Viegelahn would easily have bounced incumbent Matt Gillard from office, 88 to 38.

THE ONLY incumbent to survive was Bart Stupak who torpedoed Don Hooper, 98 to 28. Bruder said her students searched for Hooper signs, but could not find any. On the state proposals, the conservation funds were approved, 96 to 33; the ban on affirmative action was approved, 69 to 60; the mourning dove proposal was defeated, 70 to 58; eminent domain was approved, 93 to 34; and the school funding proposal was given a big thumbs up, 91 to 38.

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