Twelve-year-old Madison Wing knew all the candidates he was voting for when he walked into the library at East Valley Middle School Thursday afternoon.

The library served as a polling place for the 2008 Student Mock Election and close to 400 students participated.

"I was excited (to vote) because kids don't get to vote," he said. "I like how they set up the program for us."

Wing, a sixth-grader at EVMS, says all Americans should vote.

"So that our country doesn't go crashing into disaster," he said.

The election was organized by the EVMS student council, who were all sworn in as official mock election judges. Nikki Pierson, student body president, is happy to help organize an event to increase civic awareness, but she doesn't like to tell people who she voted for.

"I just got into an argument with my friend about it," explaining why she likes to keep her voting preference to herself.

Then Pierson cautiously whispered she voted for Sen. Obama.

"I'm against the war - that's the main thing," she said.

Seventh-grader Lane St. Clair on the other hand voted for John McCain. He said it was easy deciding about the candidates he knew, and the difficulty came when deciding between people he wasn't familiar with.

Darrell Rud, executive director of the School Administrators of Montana, said the process helps young people get engaged.

Secretary of State Brad Johnson stopped in to observe a class or two as they cast their votes.

"It was buzzing in here," he said. "It's fun to watch."

This is the third time EVMS has hosted a mock election. Superintendent Ron Whitmoyer says he enjoys providing a place young people can become informed about the voting process.

"This is what the American people are made of," Whitmoyer said. "We need to get kids enthusiastic so when they become adults and their votes actually count, they're excited about it."

State Superintendent and Secretary of State hopeful Linda McCulloch also attended the event.

McCulloch, a school librarian for many years, was all aglow wandering around the aisles of bookshelves. She recalled organizing a mock election for her students 20 years ago at the Bonner school library. Back then, it was all by paper ballots, which required tallying by hand and calling in results to the national headquarters.

Classes from Helena and Capital high schools also participated in the mock election, as did 180 other schools in the state.

Montana votes will be collected until sometime next week. Rud said due to scheduling conflicts within schools, some weren't able to participate on Thursday.

The race was tight all day with McCain beating Obama with 3,534 to 3,461 votes. At 5:30, he was still winning with 5,902 for McCain to 5,650 for Obama.

Rud is expecting close to 23,000 students to participate by the beginning of next week.

On the Web

Click here for ballot results.

Reporter Alana Listoe: 447-4081 or alana.listoe@helenaircom