Students elect minority Conservative government in Canada-wide mock ballot
Nearly 900,000 elementary and high school pupils cast ballots in a mock vote
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OTTAWA — While the grownups gave the Mark Carney Liberals a fourth term in Ottawa, Canada’s schoolchildren saw things differently.
Canadian students, participating in the nationwide Student Vote Canada program where nearly 900,000 elementary and high school pupils cast ballots in a mock vote, elected the Conservatives to a minority government, giving them 165 seats and 36.4% of the popular vote.
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The Liberals were handed 145 seats in the mock ballot, earning 31.7% of the popular vote.
Students also gave the Bloc 18 seats, the NDP 13, and the Green Party two seats.
As of Tuesday morning, the real-life Liberals had 155 seats, the Tories 133, the Bloc Quebecois 21, the NDP five, and the Greens got a single seat.
With many close races still to be decided, those numbers may still change.
For the most part, the students correctly predicted party leaders Mark Carney, Yves-François Blanchet and Elizabeth May would win their seats — but also said Pierre Poilievre would win his seat in Carleton, which as of Tuesday morning he did not.
The students, however, accurately predicted that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh would lose his seat.
A total of 870,340 ballots were counted from 5,900 schools across Canada in all 343 electoral districts.
Tabulators reported 30,453 rejected ballots.
Student Vote is run by Canadian charity CIVIX to increase education and awareness about civic affairs and democracy.
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