Youth Leadership Initiative sponsors mock election

U.Va.’s Center for Governmental Studies sponsored the largest Internet mock election in American history in November, when nearly 37,000 middle and high school students from Virginia schools cast online ballots in the presidential, senatorial, house and local elections for their precincts.

What began as a pilot project in the central Piedmont area in 1998 is now a statewide mock election, and by 2004, the Center plans to offer its online election to schools across the nation. This is the first year of the project’s national expansion, with California, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Illinois, and New York participating in straw polls similar to Virginia’s.

“Through the Center, the University of Virginia is leading the country in this area,” said Center Director Larry Sabato (Government ’74), the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Government. “There is no competition; that’s why we have the chance to be sponsors of mock elections in all 50 states. It’s a tremendous opportunity for the University.”

The mock election is only one project sponsored by Youth Leadership Initiative, the Center’s program for young people. YLI is designed to “get young people interested and involved in every component of American society,” said Kenneth Stroupe, director of YLI.

“No one’s ever taken time to make government and politics interesting to young people. When you make it interesting, they take an interest in it — they can see what an enormous effect it has on everyday life.”