By Stephanie Prokop, Staff Writer
MANSFIELD — Students old enough to vote can’t say they didn’t have time Tuesday, when Northern Burlington County Regional High School administrators gave permission for students leave the school for a class period to head to the polls.
While other township voters were turning out by the dozens to vote at the school, seniors who were 18 years old and eligible to vote were preparing to join them in their respective voting districts.
Gathered in their Current Issues class, several students talked Tuesday about what they thought of the primary candidates, and how they felt about participating in their first election.
As students sat in class, all of them said they were “taking all of the campaigning in” but had not been paying close attention to the race until recently.
MySpace, a popular online social networking tool, is one of the mediums that has helped the younger generation to become more aware of the candidates and their stances on issues.
Melinda Smehan said that while she thinks that candidates use these channels of communication to reach out to younger voters, there is still skepticism about how connected each candidate is to his or her home page.
“Even though Hillary Clinton has a MySpace, I doubt she checks it or runs it,” agreed Wes Miller.
Wes also said that he learned about former Democratic candidate John Edwards (who has since dropped out of the primary race) through MySpace.
Another popular avenue for young adults to shape their political mindset is through the pop culture television channel, MTV.
Angela Barbero said she recently became interested in the elections after watching the Super Bowl, because there was a lot of political advertising in the week before and shortly after the game.
As far as issues are concerned, all of the students agreed that U.S. energy consumption is something that worries them, and they wish to see gas prices stabilize under the next president.
“I think the next president should do whatever he can to make sure that we have cheap gas,” said Amanda Beaver.
Another issue of interest to students is the war in Iraq.
Senior Jim Specca said he is concerned about the war, because he is part of a generation that could potentially be drafted in the future.
According to history department Chairman Joe Coleman, allowing students to leave school to vote was the only logical answer to encouraging them to participate.
“A lot of students come into school at 7 a.m. and don’t leave school again until close to 6 p.m.,” he said, “By letting them leave for one class period, we are giving them the time to go and vote.”
Mr. Coleman said that teachers showed students the registration forms after they turned 18, and students filled them out in their health classes.
Students were then allowed to pick a time during which they could leave, and had to check in with their teachers for homework prior to leaving.
“It’s been proven that students who vote early on are likely to keep on voting during elections that occur during the rest of their lifetime,” he added.
Mr. Coleman also noted students will again be given the option to leave during a class period to vote in November.
“The only problem at that point is that we don’t have many students who are at that time 18 years old (in November),” he noted.
Still, students who have earlier birthdays will be able to sign themselves out, and go and vote at that time.
“By allowing them to go and vote, we are hopefully showing them that voting is a very important duty in our society,” he said.
