By Election Day 2004, if not sooner, schoolchildren will cast mock ballots in their parents' precincts.
By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published September 25, 2003
Last November, thousands of unregistered Florida voters went to the polls, cast paper ballots and chose Democrat Bill McBride for governor.
There was no hue and cry, no outrage. In fact, election officials in the three counties where it happened considered the unofficial election a good thing: Every ballot cast was cast by a child, each one a voter in waiting.
Now Pasco County is looking to follow suit.
The St. Petersburg Times announced Wednesday that it plans to partner with nonprofit, nonpartisan KidsVoting USA, as well as local schools and election officials, to increase voter participation and civic awareness among county schoolchildren and their parents.
Called KidsVoting Tampa Bay, the effort aims to educate students in grades K-12 about the political process. It culminates on Election Day, when children are encouraged to go to actual polling precincts to cast their own mock ballots while their parents vote in the real election.
The children's election results will be published in the newspaper.
"This is a chance to really make a difference here in Pasco County," Times editor and president Paul Tash told a room full of educators, politicians and newspaper employees gathered at Heritage Springs Country Club in Trinity.
Currently, about 50 percent of eligible U.S. citizens don't participate in presidential elections and 65 percent forgo local elections.
Tash said Pasco County, with 150 polling places and almost 55,000 students, provided an ideal launching ground for an effort he hopes eventually to expand to Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hernando and Citrus counties.
Since the program went nationwide in 1992, communities incorporating the KidsVoting initiative into their classrooms and elections have seen voter participation increases of 5 to 10 percent, organizers said.
"One of the things that happens is the kids study this in school and then they go home and they say, "Gee, Dad, are you a Democrat or Republican?"' said Cynthia Dunn, director of affiliate services for KidsVoting USA.
The family-based dialogue often has a trickle-up effect, she said, raising awareness of the promise of civic participation, one family at a time.
Already, KidsVoting involves more than 5-million children in 38 states. In Florida, Broward, Orange and Leon counties currently implement the program.
The Times has committed $50,000 a year for the next three years to the project. Tash said he is looking for at least 10 other businesses also willing to partner in the effort and commit $10,000 a year for three years.
The KidsVoting ballot boxes should be in place in the county by the November 2004 general election, perhaps even sooner. County Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning said he was excited to help make Pasco the birthplace of the initiative in the Tampa Bay area.
KidsVoting Tampa Bay is looking for volunteers to help facilitate the project.
In Leon County, for example, where 11,000 children voted in 2000, the Election Day requires about 1,000 volunteers to help man the KidsVoting ballot boxes in 108 polling places.
"The kids really just have a great time with it," said Townsend Waddill, director of the Leon County effort.
For more information about KidsVoting USA, visit www.kidsvotingusa.org To get involved in the Tampa Bay effort, call 727 893-8411.
- Rebecca Catalanello can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6241 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6241. Her e-mail address is rcatalanello@sptimes.com
