Student Vote teaches Surrey students the importance of voting in municipal election
École Salish Secondary students cast their ballots for Student Vote for the 2022 municipal election.
City hall wasn’t the only place counting ballots this past weekend as students from 41 schools across the Surrey School District took to the polls and participated in Student Vote, a hands-on program that uses mock elections as teachable moments, while encouraging students to engage in politics at all levels.
Surrey students at 35 elementary schools and six secondary schools cast a total of 21,311 votes for mayor and council, and 9,742 for school board. Guildford Park Secondary, William Watson Elementary, Cambridge Elementary, Semiahmoo Secondary and David Brankin Elementary had the highest voter turnout.
“We’re trying to highlight that voter participation is important for a healthy democracy,” said Nicole Jarvis, a teacher at École Salish Secondary. “We teach them how to investigate candidates and to have a reason why they support or don’t support a candidate, and to look at social media and seeing where they show up in the world. We also show them how to fill out the ballot so that it’s not intimidating or unknown so they’re more likely to be part of the electorate.”
While École Salish students participated in provincial and federal Student Vote initiatives previously, Jarvis said this was the first year students took on a municipal election, which came with its own challenges.
“Federal and provincial is a little more concrete for them, in the sense that they know security and trade is national, they know that healthcare and education are provincial,” she said. “For municipal, we had to explain what a city councillor does, what a school trustee is, and what’s under municipal purview.
“We talked about how voter participation rates are quite low and the problems that happen when only a small percentage of the population chooses the government.”
Jarvis said her students took the time to research candidates before deciding who to vote for. They were also eager to compare the outcome of the election to that of the student vote and look for similarities and differences between the two.
“They really wanted to know to what extent the adults chose the candidates that they like,” said Jarvis.
Contrary to the actual election where Brenda Locke topped the mayoral polls, Surrey students elected Jinny Sims as mayor, with 24% of the vote, over Doug McCallum (21%) and Gordie Hogg (16%). Students also elected to council Philip Aguirre, Harry Bains, Ramon Bandong, Mike Bose, Jeff Bridge, Bilal Cheema and Andy Dhillon, and re-elected Linda Annis – a different selection (apart from Annis, Bose and Bains) than were actually elected.
Overall, the opportunity to participate in Student Vote was well received by students and led to thoughtful takeaways on the importance of voting.
“If you don't vote, you might end up having a candidate who you totally disagree with,” said Grade 9 student Javad Shams. “And in my opinion, I don’t think you have the right to say something if you didn't vote, because you have the choice to vote and you have to use that opportunity.”
“You need to know your government and have the choice to choose your government because they are responsible for so many things in your life,” echoed Ulyana Okhotna, also in Grade 9.
