Woodside High School’s leadership class created a mock election in which the student body voted on the 2020 election.
Woodside’s first-year leadership student and junior, Carlos Osuna, created the mock election for students at Woodside High School. After he worked on Joe Biden’s campaign through a program known as National High Schoolers for Biden in a branch called California High Schoolers for Biden, he wanted to bring the election to Woodside to give a voice to the students and educate them on the election. The results of this mock election can be seen on the Paw Print.
While creating the form for the mock election, Osuna wanted to make sure that it was completely unbiased.
“Leadership students included have the obligation to serve the community and serve it in a nonpartisan way,” Osuna described. “When it comes to politics, you know it’s such a … divisive time [and] …that was the main concern.”
Sofia Nicolosi, a Woodside High School junior, felt that the mock election help gave her a voice.
“I thought [the mock election] was kind of nice because I could voice out my own opinions,” Nicolosi expressed.
Some found that the mock election was a good learning experience.
“Half the time, I didn’t really know what some of them were,” Nicolosi explained. “I definitely learned a lot from some of the questions.”
Sofia Kalberer, a Woodside freshman, thought she knew who would win president in Woodside’s mock election.
“I feel most people knew who they were going to vote for for president,” Kalberer said. “I would be surprised if most people voted republican because this is more a democratic area.”
The results for the president were not quite what Osuna expected.
“What was even funnier to me is that had this mock election reflected the actual U.S. numbers, Donald Trump would have come in third place,” Osuna said. “Donald Trump and Mike Pence, the incumbent president [and] vice president, would have come in third place to Roque De La Fuente and Kanye West, who came in [second] with 111 votes to President Trump’s 87 votes.”
Kalberer thought that this was a good introduction for future voters.
“I liked the idea because a lot of people at Woodside probably don’t know much about politics,” Kalberer described. “So it’s introducing them for when they’re older and going to need politics in their life.”
Osuna hopes that this mock election has helped convince the next generation of voters to go out and vote.
“Hopefully, this has helped inspire the next generation of voters to, you know, become more civically engaged,” Osuna said. “So that in the future elections, we can see more representation for what we all believe in [and] for what we think this country needs.”
