More than 18,000 elementary and high school students participated in the Student Vote program for the 2017 Nova Scotia provincial election.
As of 3 p.m. May 30, 163 schools had reported their election results, representing 50 of 51 electoral districts in the province.
In total, 18,929 ballots were cast by student participants. There were 18,186 valid votes and 743 rejected ballots.
In the Student Vote results, the PC Party forms a minority government with 25 seats. The NDP forms the Official Opposition with 13 seats and the Liberals win 11 seats. One Green Party candidate was elected.
“We would like to thank all of the teachers for their enthusiasm and leadership, and for dedicating the time and effort to this civic education exercise at such a busy time of the year," said Lindsay Mazzucco,
the chief operating officer of CIVIX, in a press release.
“This is the second Student Vote project organized in Nova Scotia this school year and more than 30,000 ballots were cast by future voters in both the municipal and provincial elections.”
Local highlights
In Hants West, the students predicted Liberal Chuck Porter would be re-elected, while John A. MacDonald would unseat the Liberal incumbent to take the Hants East riding.
In Kings North, students predicted PC candidate John Lohr would win a seat and in Kings West, fellow PC Chris Palmer would be elected. It was predicted Kings South would see Liberal incumbent Keith Irving returned to government.
As for the leaders, students predicted Baillie and the NDP's Gary Burrill would be elected, and they predicted Stephen McNeil would be re-elected in his home riding of Annapolis with 41.1 per cent of the vote. However, he would not be returned to his position of premier.
To view complete results, visit: http://studentvote.ca/results/ns2017