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School vote in Salmon Arm chooses winner accurately in two recent elections

Salmon Arm Secondary federal election results differ greatly regarding Liberals
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In a mock election at Salmon Arm Secondary for the recent federal election, the students also returned Mel Arnold to Ottawa. (Stock photo)

The federal vote was a tight race at Salmon Arm Secondary.

A majority of student voters at the school chose the same candidate in the North Okanagan-Shuswap riding as the actual vote in the federal election, but with a much tighter margin.

Students in Grade 11 and 12 at the Sullivan campus put narrow support behind Conservative Mel Arnold who was first past the post with 94 votes.

He was followed closely in the student vote by Green Marc Reinarz and NDP Harwinder Sandhu, who were neck and neck with 85.

In the adult vote, Arnold won the riding with a strong margin – 35,753 votes or 48.8 per cent of the popular vote. Next was Liberal Cindy Derkaz who won 22.7 per cent of the vote, followed by New Democrat Harwinder Sandhu with 15.3 per cent. Green Party candidate Marc Reinarz finished fourth with 10.5 per cent.

Coming in fourth in the student vote was Liberal Cindy Derkaz with 58, followed by Kyle Delfing of the People’s Party with five votes. In the adult vote, People’s Party of Canada candidate Kyle Delfing was fifth with 2.7 per cent.

Read more: Student’s parallel election produces similar results to real one

Read more: Student Votes elects Liberal minority

The student results during the 2018 municipal vote were even more similar to the actual vote than in last month’s federal election.

In the mayoralty race, the student results matched the actual race with Alan Harrison topping the polls with 182 votes, Nancy Cooper coming in second with 112 and Jim Kimmerly third with 34 votes.

The votes for councillors differed slightly from the actual results.

Just as in the actual election, councillor Tim Lavery topped the polls with 152 votes.

Kevin Babcock, however, who was not elected on Oct. 20, came in second in the student poll with 142 votes. The candidates were listed alphabetically and some students thought he might have garnered extra votes because of the ballot position.

Debbie Cannon, Kevin Flynn and Louise Wallace Richmond, who were all elected, came in third, fourth and fifth in the student poll with 114, 108 and 99 votes respectively.

The sixth spot was shared by Sylvia Lindgren and Jo McDermott, both with 95 votes. In the actual vote, Lindgren was elected.

Chad Eliason was the one councillor who wasn’t elected in the student poll but was in the real vote.

@SalmonArm
marthawickett@saobserver.net

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Martha Wickett

About the Author: Martha Wickett

came to Salmon Arm in May of 2004 to work at the Observer. I was looking for a change from the hustle and bustle of the Lower Mainland, where I had spent more than a decade working in community newspapers.
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