Ramey Elementary’s library hosts the student voting stations for Election Day activities. (Jennifer Scott/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

While the rest of the country was tuned in to watch for the outcome of a high-stakes Election Day, the students of Tyler ISD’s Ramey Elementary were busy casting ballots for a race of their own.

“We are having an election on some issues that matter to our kids, so they’re going to vote and pick one out of four things that they would like to see happen during the school year,” said Jessi Smyth, media technology specialist at Ramey Elementary.

The four activity options up for vote are: a movie in the cafeteria on Fridays, music in the cafeteria to create a restaurant-like atmosphere, a mystery guest reader event once this year, or the possibility of starting a school-wide garden, with each class taking turns caring for it.

“We just wanted to give the kids as close to a real world experience as possible,” Smyth said on Tuesday morning. “We wanted it to simulate a real polling place. We wanted it to look and feel like one so that they could have the experience without actually being able to vote in the national election today.”

Just last week, the students learned about the voting process and were even issued their own voter registration cards, giving them a taste of what it’s like to participate in an election.

“They had to keep up with them for an entire week… which was a challenge for some of them,” Smyth said.

To make the voting process feel more like ‘the real thing,’ the staff used testing binders as ballot displays, where students could select their grade and cast their votes on the available options using tablets. The only thing that wasn’t present was the thermal printer to print out the ballots.

“I like voting because it gives you new things to do and like your perspective of things… and it’s fun,” said Ramey fifth grader Shalim Jauregui.

With over 500 students casting their votes, the results were set to be announced at the end of the school day. The winning activity will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

“Voting is very important… I feel like you should vote,” fifth grader Kennadi Bush said.

In addition to the activity options, the fourth and fifth graders also voted for their homecoming king and queen, as well as the duke and duchess, and even selected a faculty member to serve as the grand marshal of the parade.

“It’s been super cute,” Smyth said. “They’ve had some campaigning going in the upper grades… the little ones are really excited to see something that they voted for take place.”