Tuesday, Nov. 5 was Election Day, and Duncan Middle School students got to vote.

While the General Election was taking place, DMS students were given an opportunity to participate in a mock election, hosted by the National Junior Honor Society DMS chapter.

The mock election is a program designed to teach students about how it feels to vote. The mock election is supposed to simulate how it’s like to vote in the real world but for students under the voting age of 18. This was done in Duncan Middle School where students could choose between Wonder Woman (Peyton Williams) and Academic Warrior (Parker Sanders).

Voting took place all day Nov. 5, and everyone sixth, seventh and eighth-grade student was given an opportunity to vote. In all, 624 people voted.

Williams is the current NJHS president, and Sanders is the president-elect for NJHS.

Sanders, posing as the Academic Warrior, took the overall vote, besting Williams as Wonder Woman.

“I wasn’t expecting to win, Sanders said of his victory. “I probably didn’t deserve to win because I didn’t have a speech, but Peyton did.”

Williams said she felt she deserved to win because she went full-out for the mock election candidate speech, including dressing up as the iconic character. She said she thought it was important to take part in the project.

“I wanted to raise school spirit,” Williams said.

Sanders said she the election was fairly done.

“Everyone had an opportunity to vote,” he said.

Mason Tincher, a sixth-grade student said he voted for Sanders and his Academic Warrior character because he knows Sanders on a personal level.

“I’ve known him for a long time,” Tincher said. “Also because he’s a warrior.”

The percentage of people who voted for Wonder Woman and Academic Warrior was pretty consistent across all grade levels.

In sixth grade, 117 students vote for Academic Warrior and 84 people voted (about 57 percent) for Wonder Woman. In all, 128 seventh-grade students voted for Academic Warrior (about 57 percent) against the 98 (or 43 percent) who voted for Wonder Woman. Eighth-grade voters elected Academic Warrior with 113 votes (59 percent) against Wonder Woman’s 79 votes (or 41 percent).

Overall, 358 students voted for Academic Warrior, which is about 57 percent, and 206 students voted for Wonder Woman, which is about 43 percent.

Following each vote, students received an “I Voted” sticker, similar to what happens when adults vote at their precincts. For this mock election project, each grade level was given a voting precinct and were able to vote with their social studies classes. Each student had to sign by their name before they were given a ballot to vote, similar to how a real election works.

This story was originally published on Demon Direct on November 18, 2024.