For students, participating in mock elections is no longer as simple as checking a box by a presidential candidate’s name and dropping a homemade paper ballot into a bin.
Those nostalgic exercises have evolved to teach students about the logistics of the electoral process, helping them to overcome the intimidation first-time voters often face.
Today’s students may cast mock ballots on real voting machines adults use, register to vote using their student ID number, or fill out absentee ballots at their desks. Educators tabulate results districtwide—sometimes across entire states—to show how the votes in one classroom or one school building are just part of a larger total.
The efforts aim to help students develop the rhythms of civic participation early, and—by teaching about how ballots are tabulated in their state or region—to build the next generation’s understanding and trust in the voting process.
They come at a time as the 2024 presidential election shines a spotlight on the importance of young voters, and as election officials plan outreach and education efforts to misinformation by some candidates that undermines public trust in election outcomes.
“We know that young people who vote early form a habit of voting,” said MoonSub Vendetta, who helps organize a statewide student mock election for the Washington Secretary of State’s office. “We want to reflect the process so that when they reach the age where they can vote, they know how it works.”
States help schools tailor mock elections to reflect their own laws
A growing number of secretaries of state offer materials to help schools stage their own mock elections and, sometimes, systems to tabulate and visualize statewide totals. Those efforts are often tailored to states’ specific laws related to registration and voting, helping to demystify the process.
When Washington lawmakers required statewide vote-by-mail in 2011, the student mock election evolved to reflect the change. Students now fill out their own mail-in ballots, which they seal and sign just like the real thing. They learn how election workers verify signatures, and some take field trips to witness the process.
In Michigan, mock election materials direct teachers to divide their classes in thirds, offering them either absentee ballots, early voting instructions, or an opportunity to vote on Election Day.
Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate worked with social studies teachers to create lessons on voting, including a caucus simulation that allows students to act out the state’s in-person method of selecting primary candidates.
At Republican caucuses, participants gather and then select a nominee through a blind vote. At Democratic caucuses, they physically gather in groups with other supporters of the same candidate, taking several rounds to eliminate those with low totals and reorganize into new groups that match their second or third choices until a critical mass forms around remaining nominees. In the mock Iowa caucus, students campaign for their favorite fruit. (There is no statewide tabulation of the results so there is no clear answer whether Iowa students prefer apples or oranges.)
Fake elections address real concerns for young voters
The creative efforts aim to address perennial concerns about low election turnout among young Americans.
Young voter turnout has improved in recent election, data show, but levels remain below that of older Americans. About half of voters ages 18 to 29 voted in the 2020 election, compared to 39 percent in 2016, according to an analysis by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
Researchers have found that registering to vote and participating in elections early in adulthood helps build a lifelong habit of more consistent electoral participation. Having voted in the previous election is among the strongest predictors of whether a voter will turn out to the polls.
But understanding the logistical process of voting can be intimidating.
When CIRCLE surveyed 2,000 18- to 34-year-olds in November 2023, 57 percent of overall respondents said they were “extremely likely” to vote in 2024. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, though, 51 percent said they were “extremely likely” to head to the ballot box.
Respondents who said they were less likely to vote identified barriers, including a lack of information about candidates and issues, a lack of resources about the how-to register and participate, feeling unqualified to vote, or feeling that their vote won’t make a difference.
Offering an on-ramp to voting
Such concerns have propelled youth-driven efforts to allow 16-year-olds to vote in local school board elections, which lets them vote for the first time when they are still in school and feel personally connected to the issues that drive such races.
“Voting right now is treated as: Before you’re 18, you’re just not competent at all,” Yenjay Hu, a student who successfully championed such a measure in Newark, N.J., as a high school senior told Education Week in January. “And then as soon as you turn 18, you’re expected to know everything about the electoral process, everything about elected officials and government. We don’t really think that is a constructive way to create educated voters in the future.”
States have also supported young voters by allowing teens to preregister, adding them to the voter roles with a “pending” status until they reach 18. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., allow students to preregister at 16, and three allow preregistration at 17.
Some schools set up registration tables near their mock election ballot boxes, hoping to encourage students to transfer their learning to the real world.
Simulating a real election with voter guides, ballot boxes, and a little bit of fun
While students are often aware of candidates’ personas and conflicts, particularly in presidential election years, schools should also help them understand the more routine elements of the voting process, said Emma Humphries, the chief education officer of iCivics. The nonprofit organization founded by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor offers free civics education resources to schools.
“A big part of our philosophy is that the best way to maintain the health of our democracy is to teach democracy, and simulations are one of the best ways to do that,” Humphries said.
iCivics offers teachers a mock election lesson that includes scaffolded activities to teach about concepts like primaries and political parties. The simulation allows students to campaign in classroom primaries to be the candidate for the fictional orange and purple parties.
A big part of our philosophy is that the best way to maintain the health of our democracy is to teach democracy, and simulations are one of the best ways to do that.
The organization also provides a free computer game that teaches about the electoral college by having students act as a candidate, select issues, create campaign ads, and poll different states in the race to the needed 270 electoral votes.
Election education is more effective when students can grapple with real candidates and issues, talk to real election officials, and make connections to their own lives, Humphries said.
Harris vs. Trump, or cookies vs. ice cream?
In Washington state, students use a state-issued voter guide that mimics the one real voters use to weigh their decisions on a range of issues and candidates. This year, one of the two mock ballot options includes an abbreviated version of the actual candidates adult voters will consider, including state races like the governor and superintendent of public instruction.
An alternative ballot, typically used for elementary students, asks young voters to weigh ballot initiatives about school cellphone restrictions, digital textbooks, and the legitimacy of pineapple as a pizza topping. Students will also fulfill the weighty civic duty of selecting the state’s “cryptid ambassador,” choosing between Sasquatch and the Lake Chelan Dragon. (Neither nonpartisan candidate was available for comment, according to Secretary of State Steve Hobbs.)
“Students appreciate not only that the mock election is practicing for a real election, but the fact that it is fun a lot of the times,” Vendetta said. “I think students learn a lot about themselves and how the process works, and it also creates a space for civil discourse.”
State officials also provide “I Voted” stickers, and many schools set up polling places in gyms and cafeterias so students can get a more realistic experience.
Some states even feed their results into national mock elections, including the National Student/Parent Mock Election. Students participating in a national student vote simulation staged by Scholastic, the educational publishing company, have predicted the winner of the national popular vote in almost every contest since it started in 1940, the Washington Post reported. (A Scholastic spokesperson said the company is not conducting the student vote this year for the first time in recent memory, but it has provided resources for teachers.)
Navigating political divisions in the classroom
Schools hosting mock elections must account for how a divisive political climate affects the tradition. Holding a mock election, discussing real candidates, and declaring a winner is likely to stir up anxiety among educators, particularly during a contentious presidential campaign punctuated by misinformation about election integrity.
Parents often hold strong feelings about major campaign issues like abortion and immigration, making classroom discussions fraught.
An elementary school in Centereach, New York, cancelled its 2016 mock election after teachers grew concerned that students repeated “negative rhetoric about minorities,” echoing language about immigration they’d heard on the news, ABC News reported.
Fifty-eight percent of K-12 teachers responding to an August survey conducted by the EdWeek Research Center answered “no” when asked if they planned to talk about the election in class. More than half said that’s because they don’t teach a relevant subject, but nearly a quarter, 22 percent, said instruction about the election “could lead to parent complaints,” and 19 percent said they didn’t believe their “students can discuss this topic with one another in a respectful manner.”
Those concerns may be heightened in the in 18 states that have passed policies to restrict discussions on race, gender, and sexuality. Some schools have given guidance to educators in their election materials.
The mock election homepage for the Katy, Texas, district includes a page for parents, explaining the purpose of the exercise and how their child can choose to opt out. The teacher page includes a link to a district policy on discussing controversial issues in an unbiased manner in accordance with state law.
The district’s election mimics the real thing: Katy Students must register to vote in advance, and each school is assigned a certain number of electoral college votes that will factor into the districtwide winner.
‘Electricity in the building’
If national politics feel too tricky for classroom conversations, teachers should use the opportunity to teach about local elections, allowing students to vote for positions like mayor or county commissioner, Humphries said.
“I’ve seen the sort of electricity in the building when you have mock elections going on,” she said.
Humphries still remembers administering her high school’s 2000 mock election as a senior in Broward County, Fla. Districtwide, students selected former Vice President Al Gore as the clear winner over then Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
The real election was ... a little more dramatic. Questions about a confusing ballot design and recounts boiled over in neighboring Palm Beach County before the issue eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with Bush.
Humphries, who later became a civics teacher, knew she could bring her questions about each day’s news developments to class.
“No matter what I saw on the news, no matter how confusing or upsetting it was, I knew I could ask about it,” she said.
