Senator Barack Obama won the mock election with 81% percent of the popular vote in a smooth and organized election that attempted to parallel the national election which took place the same day. Obama took all the electoral votes. Overall, the mock election went smoothly, organizors said, with the occasional long line or confusion about districts and how to use the ballot.

Polls were held Nov. 4 in the gym. With 470 ballots cast, the results were: Democrat Barack Obama, 81%; Republican John McCain, 19%; Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party, Libertarian Bob Barr, Alan Keyes, American Independent Party, and Ralph Nader, Peace and Freedom, all recieved negligible votes. Ballots also included various real-world and Marlborough propositions. Prop 8 did not pass, but Prop 2 did.

Marlborough’s own propositions, Prop R and G both didn’t pass.

“The day was really well organized,” said Zoe ’09, one of the student organizers. “It seems like the large majority voted because we’re a politically active community, but it was also really easy to vote, too.”

Students had to go to certain polling stations because everyone was divided into “states,” such as Rodeo BH and Cawthordena, based on contiguous zip codes. The electoral states worked on a winner take all system, with an amount of electoral votes that would be representative of how the nation would vote. The Electoral College, therefore, did not

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• THE BREAKDOWN: See which grades had the highest voter turn out and how many votes Obama received per region and per grade.
• EXIT POLL: See how the students based their votes on.

• MUSICOLOGY:Many students want music program updated, but many say that they wouldn't have time
• HOW DO THEY DO IT?: How is Marymount manage an orchestra?

Washington Post columnist Andrés Martinez, Director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program and the New America Foundation and former editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, held a Q+A session with students on the role of media in the current election on Nov. 3.

Martinez used one of the questions from the day, asked by Faith Harding ’10, in the online version of his Washington Post column on Nov. 4.  Harding asked whether Martinez thought that there has been a shift in recent years whereby voters choose their candidate based more on personal character than on party loyalty.

Martinez responded that Gallup surveys estimate a quarter to a third of voters are swayed solely by party affiliation.

Much of the discussion centered on how this election is different from previous ones because of new technology or new trends in the news media.

Martinez said that the “cell phone and blogging era” has affected how candidates behave because they can never truly be off the record.  Their statements can always be caught by cell phone and posted on YouTube, Martinez said.

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