Intalgent

Intalgent Hosts Nation’s Largest Student Mock Election

While adults will cast their vote tomorrow in one of our nation’s most historic elections, students in grades K through 12 had their voices heard by casting over three million votes in the nation’s largest mock election.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (November 3, 2008) – While adults will cast their vote tomorrow in one of our nation’s most historic elections, students in grades K through 12 had their voices heard by casting over three million votes in the nation’s largest mock election. From October 20-30, American students around the globe participated in an online mock election sponsored by the Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI), a civic education program sponsored by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Intalgent, a provider of custom application development and managed services, designed the state-of-the art electronic voting system in 2003. Since then, Intalgent has annually hosted YLI-sponsored local and national mock elections and worked closely with YLI staff to enhance the student simulation and improve the teacher experience.

"This year’s mock election generated a lot of excitement among teachers," said Meg Heubeck, YLI’s Director of Instruction. "We had very few issues from teachers visiting the site thanks to a very easy-to-use interface."

In preparation for this year’s election, Intalgent scaled the hosting infrastructure to accommodate hundreds of student ballots being cast per second.

"It was a lot of work to get the simulation to this point," said Heubeck. "Intalgent worked very collaboratively with us to translate our needs into a reality. The result was a highly successful election and a positive experience for us, our teachers and the students."

Students from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Department of Defense schools abroad voted in the 2008 YLI Mock Election. Mock election results, announced October 31, showed Senator Barack Obama as the next President of the United States.