Hawaii kids elected Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono governor by a slim margin of 361 votes, or 0.63 percent, over Linda Lingle in a statewide mock election. Hawaii kids choose Hirono
in statewide mock electionBy Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.comA total of 58,106 public and private school students cast their ballots from Oct. 22 until yesterday in Kids Voting Hawaii.
"The joy on the kids' faces was just awesome," said Linda Coble, Kids Voting Hawaii board chairwoman, at Maili Elementary School yesterday.
The program was designed to teach students in kindergarten through grade 12 about the democratic process.
Some kids accompanied their parents to designated polling places yesterday where they could vote online. Others voted earlier from school or home.
Teachers downloaded tokens or private passwords for their students. Although not every school participated, all students were allowed to participate if they went to the polls. Students could vote in all the races the adults did, with ballots similar to the real ones.
Kids Voting Hawaii officials said 46,450 children had already voted before yesterday and another 11,656 cast their votes on Election Day. Commercial Data Systems and Hawaiian Electric Industries partnered to develop the Internet voting technology used in Kids Voting Hawaii.
The system allowed the students voting to be tracked quickly by schools, grade levels and island by island.
Hirono and running mate Sen. Matt Matsunaga garnered 24,721 votes, or 43.36 percent, to 24,360 votes, or 42.73 percent, for Lingle and James "Duke" Aiona.
Lingle won on Oahu by 18,536 to 17,778. Hirono won on Maui, 2,138 to 1,501.
On the Big Island, Hirono got 47 percent of the vote, compared with 38 percent for Lingle, and on Kauai, the difference was just 19 votes, with Hirono garnering 2,385 votes to Lingle's 2,366.
The results can be found at www.kidsvotinghawaii.org.
