It's very interesting. I have actually done so many of these elections. In a presidential year especially, the kids hear their parents and everybody talking about the election, and they feel as if they are a part of it when they're not voting for just something to do with their school or something to do with their class and putting a piece of paper in a box. They feel that they are allowed to do something that only 18-year-olds can do. Their faces lights up when they get to do something that they feel is a privilege or is something interesting. When we bring the machines in and they are actually looking at their name or the school name or the school colours, it's just really intriguing to them.
When we're dealing with high schools, most of the senior classes automatically, right then and there, start filling out registration cards. If they haven't done it already, they're going to grab these cards right there in the schools.
In Louisiana we also have, in the month of January, a special private election called the Louisiana Young Readers' Choice Election. The libraries have a state-wide program through which they let the kids pick the books they like the best, and they all participate. At the end, they have all of the results. They get to see the results tapes. It's uniquely getting children and young adults involved in the elections process before they turn 18. It really is a good thing.
I believe that the turnout we get.... Now, we also do private elections in universities, so if the university has its student president election or something like that, we will offer our services for those elections as well.
We're a top-down system, meaning we program our own voting machines and we work on our own voting machines, so programming the elections is not a problem. If it is for an educational purpose, there is no charge. There is no service fee, nothing. We do this to help the state get out there and get people to vote.
I really do believe it's a great program.