MANCHESTER, N.H. (Jan. 8) – At a polling booth in Manchester, Nicky Lito exercised his voting right by choosing the former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as the Republican presidential nominee.
Nicky is 8 years old. “I voted for Mike Huckabee,” he said. “The person I voted for,” he added, “is awesome.”
Children below 17 years were unofficial participants in the presidential primaries in New Hampshire Tuesday. They were escorted by their parents, who had come to cast ballots that would count. The children’s ballot-casting was part of an educational program in New Hampshire to encourage them to take part in politics.
Charlotte Lito, the mother of Nicky Lito, said that her son was “excited” to come and see democracy in action. “He wanted to know why we are voting today,” she said, “and if we will vote again in November.”
The voting age is 18 years in the U.S. But an organisation called Kids Voting USA aims to involve students – who are below the voting age – in democracy. They try to educate students outside classrooms through this authentic voting experience of casting unofficial votes in the real elections.
Joan Flurey, chairperson for Kids Voting USA at the Neil Youth Center polling booth, said that children tend to side with their parents’ choice, or choose the candidate they often see on television. Either way, she said, it is an “opportunity for the children to voice their opinion.” Flurey added: “It kind of gives them the satisfaction to say, `Look, we voted the way adults voted.’”
Flurey said, “We are hopefully making a generation of kids that cares.”
Kaetag Albert, who had come to the polling booth with her grandmother, found the whole experience “fun.” Her vote for Republican Ron Paul, she said, was an easy choice to make. “My mom and dad did,” she said, “so I voted for him.”
(Trina Joshi, a magazine-newspaper-online journalism graduate student, is covering the New Hampshire primaries for The Indian Express of New Delhi, India.)
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