Students Cast Their Votes

Western Illinois University students have cast their votes … and the winner is: Barack Obama and his running mate, John Edwards.

Elizabeth “Liz” Bales, Sherrard, Ill., senior broadcasting major, and Don Norton ’77 MA ’91, broadcast instructor, tabulate votes in preparation for a live update of preliminary results on Macomb cable channel 3.Obama and Edwards were declared winners of the mock presidential election, "The Road to the White House Starts at Western Illinois University," during the last night of the event Nov. 5 in Western Hall. Obama and Edwards, who captured the electoral votes of all but six states, ran against Rudy Giuliani, with running mate John McCain; Green Party candidate Jared Ball; and Libertarian Party candidate Ron Paul. During the evening's festivities, all four parties—Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian—vied for their candidates' election. The event ended with thousands of balloons dropping from the rafters while the Marching Leathernecks played “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

When the simulation gaveled closed Nov. 5, the WIU Marching Leathernecks Band played "Stars and Stripes Forever" as thousands of balloons were dropped from the rafters in Western Hall.Rick Hardy '70 , project director and chair of Western's political science department, patterned this educational extravaganza after successful— yet smaller—simulations he and John Hemingway, associate project director, organized at the University of Iowa in 1976, and another simulation Hardy conducted at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1988. In both scenarios, the simulation winner was, in reality, elected president.

"The entire experience was an overwhelming success," Hardy said at the conclusion of the Nov. 5 event. "Our students took an active role in the process, from start to finish. The campaign managers and the candidates' supporters took their jobs seriously and campaigned for their candidates as if this was the real thing."

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