Students across the state along with some here in Carter County are now part of a major milestone after taking part in the first-ever statewide Student Mock Election.
A total of 165,968 students representing 479 schools in 90 of the state’s 95 counties took part in the mock election sponsored by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and state election officials. In Carter County, two schools took part in the mock election — Happy Valley Middle School and Happy Valley High School. At Happy Valley Middle, 343 students cast their ballots while at Happy Valley High 121 voted, bringing the total number of students participating in Carter County to 464 between the two schools.

“I’m thrilled that so many students and teachers from across our great state got behind this project with such passion,” Hargett said on Wednesday. He announced the statewide results in a special live social media broadcast from Thurman Francis Arts Academy in Smyrna where the winner was decided by just four votes.
“Hopefully giving civics such an important role in the classroom translates into engaged citizens who continue exercising their right to vote when they are old enough to vote in real elections,” Hargett said.
Students in preschool through high school from public and private schools as well as home school associations in Tennessee participated. Ballots let students choose between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and all qualified independent presidential candidates — Gary Johnson, “Rocky” Roque De Le Fuente, Jill Stein, Alyson Kennedy, and Mike Smith.
Schools were allowed to hold their local elections in a variety of different ways and were encouraged to tie the event in with civics lessons and other classroom activities.
If next week’s Presidential election were to be decided by students in the state of Tennessee, Donald Trump would be the next President of the United States. In the state-wide numbers, Trump captured a total of 88,208 votes giving him 53.1 percent of all the votes. Clinton came in with 56,935 — or 34.3 percent — of the votes. Of the independent candidates, Johnson fared the best with 8,374 — or 5 percent — of votes. Rounding out the independent candidates were De Le Fuente with 3,888 votes, Stein with 3,800 votes, Kennedy with 2,434 votes, and Smith with 2,329 votes.
Locally, Trump’s margin of victory was even higher.
At Happy Valley High School, Trump garnered 96 votes to Clinton’s 15, which gave him 79.3 percent of the votes at the school.
Students at the Middle School selected Trump by an even larger margin. Trump captured 288 votes at Happy Valley Middle to Clinton’s 22, giving him 83.9 percent of the vote.