Program teaches kids value of voting

This is the sixth of an occasional series of stories exploring Hawai'i's poor voter turnout and solutions for change.

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer

Schoolchildren across the state will vote in the General Election this year as part of a nonprofit civics program, Kids Voting Hawai'i.

The goal is to teach them about the process so they'll vote when they're older. The hope is that they'll involve their parents and improve voter turnout generally.

"It's been termed 'trickle-up democracy,' " said Karen Scates, president of Arizona-based Kids Voting USA.

In 2000, Hawai'i had the lowest voter turnout in the nation, and the voting rates of the state's youngest voters are the lowest of all age groups.

Kaua'i High School student Luke Evslin, 17, will vote for the first time in this year's General Election, a month after his 18th birthday. He already has registered.

He did vote in a Kids Voting election four years ago.

Evslin said his family had more to do with his interest in voting than school did, but he agreed that a school-based voter education program could be a valuable impetus for young people.

Ronald Moon, chief justice of the Hawai'i Supreme Court, agrees. In a speech earlier this year to the Rotary Club, Moon said, "Finding ways to persuade our citizenry — young and old alike — to exercise this important right of citizenship is significant and critical to the preservation of our democracy."

Kids Voting Hawai'i started in 1996 as a pilot program, and expanded across the state in 1998. That year, 77,000 public and private students from kindergarten to grade 12 cast paper ballots for major public offices, said program president Lyla Berg, a former teacher and public school principal who has trained teachers statewide.

"There was an amazing result, plus people saw children dragging adults along to vote," she said.

In 2000, there was a drop in kids voting, just as in Hawai'i's voter turnout. The Kids Voting turnout in 2000 was 56,000 students. Berg said she expects it to pick up again this year.

Kids get seven lessons before the General Election — a crash course in civics, why they need to vote, the mechanics of voting, assessing candidates and more. They also take home a parent guide on voting.

"There is no civics education in our schools ... a deliberate, intentional instruction in the government process and the way in which citizens can participate," Berg said.

This year, kids will vote electronically, on personal computers outfitted with voting software. Ballots will reflect the candidates and issues in precincts where the students' parents would vote. Students will have personal identification numbers attached to their electronic ballots to ensure each person votes only once.

Rotary Club members around the state will staff polling places that are in schools, and the Kids Voting polling places will be at the same locations — although the voting computers may be set up in separate rooms. Like adult voters, students may vote "absentee."

Berg said kids tend to vote the same way as the adults in their communities do, although she recalls a phone call from a Republican Kaua'i woman who believed Kids Voting might be sponsored by the Democratic Party, because her kids were planning to vote for Democrats. The program is not partisan, Berg said.

State elections officials, aware that kids' votes track adult votes, have asked Kids Voting to keep its vote totals secret until after the polls close, so they don't influence adult voting.

On a national scale, too, Kids Voting tends to track adult voting, except on the issues, Scates said.

"On issues, kids tend to be more environmentally sensitive than adults, and they also tend to be a little more conservative on abortion issues," she said. "On candidates, they tend to vote the way their family does."

Kids Voting Hawai'i has major corporate support from American Savings Bank, along with Aloha Airlines, the Office of Elections, the educational women's sorority Alpha Delta Kappa and the statewide Rotary Club.

Rotary District 5000 officials are registering adult voters, and will help set up the Kids Voting polling places across the state.

Berg said she is certain that after a few more elections, Kids Voting will translate into a significant increase in voting by young adults who have come through the program. The impact of kids interested in voting also should translate into more parental voting, she said.

Elections officials hope the large number of contested races this year — 410 candidates for national, state and local offices — will generate good turnout. Berg said she believes Kids Voting will help.

State elections chief Dwayne Yoshina is a staunch supporter of the program.

"We're hoping it will reinstill in people that voting is part of our responsibility as citizens," Yoshina said, adding that the program must be supplemented by a good social studies curriculum.

Both Yoshina and Chief Justice Moon have written to protest a Department of Education task force proposal to cut the high school graduation requirement from four social studies classes to three. Moon called it "a step backward."

Yoshina said teachers had tried for years to instill in students the importance of voting. Some have asked the Office of Elections for sample ballots. But the Kids Voting program creates a practical program that should build on the kind of citizenship instruction kids get in social studies courses.

"If we do the theory stuff in schools, Kids Voting will let the kids go out and practice the theory," Yoshina said.

State schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto also supports the program.

"Kids Voting is a perfect example of a program that supports civil responsibility as well as helping students understand and exercise democracy and what it means to all of us," Hamamoto said.

Evslin, of Kaua'i High, said he can understand why some students don't care about voting.

"I think they believe it's not going to make much difference who the mayor is or who's on the council," he said. "Why waste a day voting when you could go to the beach?

"But I've always had an interest in it. I want to vote."

Chief Justice Moon said young people need to be taught that their vote can be critically important.

"Our young citizens must learn that understanding government entails an appreciation of how it impacts our own lives — that is, that government can declare war or make peace; it can foster justice or injustice; it can enact fair or unfair laws; and it can violate or protect human rights."

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.