To help prove voter turnout, students collected "I Voted" stickers from Wrangell residents who came out during the midterms.
Many Wrangell residents who went out to vote in the Nov. 6 midterms saw a poster board covered in blue "I Voted" stickers. They were encouraged to add their stickers to the collage to support Evergreen Elementary. This past election, the school participated in the 2018 First Alaskan Institute Youth Voter Turnout Challenge.
The contest was fairly simple, as explained by a paper attached to the sticker collage. Whichever school saw the highest increase in voter turnout from 2016 to 2018 would win $10,000. The second place prize was $5,000. According to Esther Ashton, with the Wrangell Cooperative Association, the money could be used to benefit the school's STEM lab should they win it.
The idea of a poster board of "I Voted" stickers came from several teachers with the elementary school, according to Ashton. Third grade teacher Jenn Miller said that students got to participate in this project by encouraging their families to go out and vote, and by learning about how elections work, and by getting to vote on different things in their classrooms.
In a small ceremony at the school on Nov. 7, students showed off three completely filled poster boards, and a fourth paper covered in stickers.
"Thank you all for all that you did to help with this," Ashton said, addressing the students. "Thank you to the teachers, and all these stickers are just so exciting, so thank you."
According to Miller, the contest was a great opportunity for her students to learn more about elections and voting. She added that her kids were really happy to participate in the challenge and had fun with it.
"We're super happy with how it turned out, we don't know what will happen." She said. "We did apply for the challenge, and I'm not sure how all that is going to play out or when they're going to make announcements or anything, but we sure feel like there was a real positive sense of voting in the community."
Kim Lane, with Wrangell City Hall, provided documents showing that 733 out of Wrangell's 1,904 registered voters turned out for the election. This does not count an additional 175 early votes that were cast, however. In the 2016 general election, there were 764 out of 1,731 registered voters.
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