Even though they won’t technically count towards the national vote, students’ voices were heard in the mock election Friday Nov. 2, as Senior Nick Ferrari announced the election of sitting President Barack Obama by a scant margin of 49 votes.

For students who are at least 18, this years’ election has opened its voting booth curtains. Students who haven’t yet reached this landmark, though, still had a way to participate in this national event.

The League of Women Voters provided funds towards the purchase of scantrons to expedite the process and make data from the results more easily accessible to teachers.

The league makes an effort to impart candidate information without bias.  “We’ve done mock elections before…one of the big goals of league is to educate citizens about candidates,” said representative Evie Gorski. “[One of] the big parts of our organization is that we are nonpartisan.”

While many students participated in the election, 2,195 to be exact, many students didn’t seem to understand the point of their votes. Phrases like ‘I’m just voting for whoever my parents like’ dropped from a few students’ mouths over the course of the voting, and one student made a write-in vote for Ron Paul on the scantron. Regardless, though, the election turned out to be a huge success.

As for the future of the election results, “Teachers will have the option to use the data for projects, like the statistics and government classes,” said assistant principal Paul Stuart. “We’ll be generating the popular vote, but a government class could create their own electoral system as a project.”

Teachers turned in scantron sheets with students’ votes to a number of poll counting centers, where Model United Nations students tallied them.

After all the votes were counted, the race was close—Obama won the Nelson Complex by a single vote, and the election overall by only 49. Mitt Romney pulled away with 39% and 875 of the votes, while Incumbent Barack Obama received 42% and 924 of the votes. Third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein received a surprising 18% of the vote.