Students from Croatian primary and secondary schools voted in simulated American presidential elections.
Hillary Clinton has won the elections for US President, at least in Croatian primary and secondary schools. Croatian students gave her 4,232 votes, while her rival Donald Trump received 1,982 votes, reports Jutarnji List on November 8, 2016.
The elections were held as part of the project “Simulation of US presidential elections”. The voting took place in 27 schools across the country from 25 October to 7 November. The initiative was organized by the Croatian-American Society and the aim was to familiarize students with the US electoral system. During the two weeks, children were involved in the electoral process: they put up campaign posters in their schools, made presentations about the elections, and urged voters on the election day not to stay in their classrooms, but to go to their polling places. How efficient they were is best demonstrated by the fact that the turnout was a whopping 100 percent.
In order for the election to be as close to the real thing as possible, each school represented one US state. “I really have to praise my students. They made the flag of the United States, posters, made a presentation, and formed two teams that went from class to class and explained voting and election rules to other students. And they did it all themselves”, said Anita Ivanković, a professor at Medical High School in Osijek, which represented the state of Michigan.
Students were informed about the election rules mostly during English language classes. Organizers sent to each school a series of videos explaining the main election issues: economy, immigration and healthcare system. The students then talked about what they had seen and discussed which of the two candidates would better solve the problems.
“In this way, we have all been involved in the elections in order to better understand them. Students were really impressed, and everyone wanted to be part of the voting committee whose job it was to organize and conduct elections. I was surprised how much they had learned”, said Ivanković.
Hillary Clinton won a decisive victory in 24 schools, while Donald Trump won only in two schools. In one school, which represented two separate states, they split the vote. Trump won more votes at the Technical School in Čakovec (Texas), where he received 72 votes, while Clinton won only 24. Trump also won at the Vocational High School Antun Horvat in Đakovo (New Jersey), where he received 123 votes, while Clinton won 119 votes. He was the winner in one part of the Ninth Grammar School in Zagreb (Indiana), where he received 105 votes, while Clinton received 104 votes. However, in the second part of that same school (Tennessee), Trump lost with 173 vote difference.
