CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kids Voting volunteers Kathy Tanaka, left, and Valerie Okihara looked over the voting site's home page yesterday.
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Young voices: Kids Voting Hawaii
Isle students will get quick results with an electronic mock vote
Near-instant vote tabulation will be a reality this general election -- but only for Hawaii students.
Kids Voting Hawaii, a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort to educate youths about voting, continues its efforts to rid apathy from the minds of future voters.
As of yesterday morning, 91,962 of more than 200,000 students in 434 schools, public and private, had registered for the mock election.
It is a tool that could encourage parents to go out and vote, said retired social studies teacher Valerie Okihara. Voter turnout in the state is among the worst in the nation. This year's primary election yielded 42.1 percent of registered voters in the state.
"When the kids get excited, they can talk about it with their parents," said Okihara, who participated in the program as a teacher in the 2002 general election. "They could help bring their parents to the polls."
Okihara said the mock-voting system encourages political dialogue between students, parents and teachers. The ballot also asks a number of polling questions, many pertaining to education.
Teachers can also access a Kids Voting USA curriculum through the Kids Voting Hawaii Web site. Okihara said it is not only a mock election, it is a study in civics.
The online voting system was developed by Commercial Data Systems of downtown Honolulu. The Web database ensures students complete privacy as to who they voted for, said Mark Gilbert, the company's vice president of sales and marketing.
At 6 p.m. on Nov. 7, the company will tabulate the results and will only reveal how many students voted and who won in the mock election for children, Gilbert said.
"My system here is more secure than the state balloting system," said Gilbert, adding even he would not be able to see how a child voted.
So why has the company not sought a lucrative contract with the state Office of Elections?
"We don't see it as a revenue opportunity," said Gilbert of the estimated $200,000 project. "The current way of doing it is saddled with legacy, and I'm not throwing trash on the state."
Gilbert said the traditional paper-ballot voting system probably will not be thrown out for several years, especially since some residents might be wary about privacy issues.
The immediate goal for the project is to nurture a generation to get into the habit of voting, he said. When they hit 18, today's students might call for e-voting.
"It is the responsibility of us as citizens to use our right to vote, and to try and reverse the trend we've seen over the years," Gilbert said.
Voting begins two weeks prior to the actual general election and closes that day, said Linda Coble, Kids Voting Hawaii chairwoman. For students who do not have Web access at home, voting booths will be set up at public schools around the state.
"And this year, for the first time, state libraries will set up voting booths," Coble said. "The program also fits with a school's goals to make kids more technology-savvy."