They may not have been old enough to cast legal ballots, but elementary and high school students under the voting age, did cast mock ballots in the Student Vote program in the Saskatchewan general election.
The votes were taken but results sealed until Monday evening and, their selections didn’t vary too widely from their adult counterparts.
A total of 19,758 students from 273 schools cast votes, including students from nine schools located in the Estevan Constituency. When their voting was completed, they too determined they wanted the Saskatchewan Party to lead the province, giving them 48 seats in their simulated legislature with a 53 per cent margin in the overall count. The New Democratic Party was second, just like they were in the adult election, gaining 13 seats and 23 per cent of the overall vote. The Green Party fared much better with the classroom crowd than they did with the adult population, gaining 11 per cent of the vote, but no seats in the 61 seat Legislative Assembly, compared with about three per cent and zero seats in the adult world. The same held true for the Liberal Party with 11 per cent of the vote, but zero mock members.
On the total vote scales, the Sask. Party claimed 10,092 of the student votes while the NDP claimed 4,283 followed by the Green Party with 2,085, Liberals with 2,046 and the Progressive Conservatives with 304 or just 1.61 per cent. The Independent votes and the Western Independent Party claimed the final 88 votes between them.
In the Estevan Constituency, Lori Carr from the Sask. Party claimed the seat, just as she did in the genuine election.
