LEWISTON – Lewiston fifth-grader Saré Howes stepped into the voting booth Thursday and cast her ballot.

The Martel Elementary School booths were desks holding oversized cardboard boxes painted in red and white stripes. The election was part of the student mock election going on in schools throughout Maine.

“I voted for Barack Obama because my dad has to go to Iraq in two years. If he tries hard enough, he can get the troops out of Iraq and stop the war before my dad has to go,” said Howes, 10.

Fifth-graders Gemma Smith and Dominique Sepulveda also voted for Obama.

“I think he’ll make a good president,” Sepulveda said.

“I like how he thinks of peace,” Smith said.

At Greene Central School, sixth-grader Ben Fullerton said he voted for John McCain. “I like his new tax plans.”

Fellow sixth-grader Austin Anderson, 11, said he too voted for McCain “because he was in the war. And he wants to find other ways for energy.”

It’s elementary democracy. As of Friday, 327 of Maine’s 632 public schools were signed up to hold mock elections. That’s up from the normal 300 schools participating, said Secretary of State Matt Dunlap. “More are calling every day.”

He attributed the increase to a heightened interest in this year’s presidential election. “People are jazzed.”

The mock elections are not scientific polls, but politicians pay attention to how students vote, Dunlap said. Often, votes from youngsters reflect what they’re hearing from adults at home, he said.

Auburn Middle School will hold its mock election on Monday, Lisbon High School on Oct. 29, and Turner Elementary School on Oct. 30.

Statewide results for the mock elections won’t be available until the last day of voting, Oct. 30. But a few schools have released their results.

Greene Central School went for John McCain, 227 votes to Obama’s 164. Greene students also picked Republican incumbent Susan Collins over Democratic challenger Tom Allen for the U.S. Senate, and incumbent Democrat Mike Michaud over Republican challenger John Frary for the U.S. House.

Lewiston’s Martel Elementary voted for Barack Obama, 199 votes to 118 for McCain. Martel students also voted for Collins and Michaud.

It was the first time Martel had held a mock election. Student Councilor Brendon Dunn said the Student Council wanted an election to get everyone involved. And, “voting is fun,” he said.

Martel teachers hoped students would get a sense of how important it is to vote, how each person’s vote matters, said teacher Erin Breau.

“The ones who have voted are very proud,” said teacher Andrea Bail. “They have a little button that says, ‘I voted.'”

It was fun to hear students’ take on politics, Bail said. “A lot of them don’t have the same view as their parents, we’re finding.”

Greene Central School faculty are veterans at mock elections, having held them since 1975, said teacher and organizer Nancy Flick.

Teachers use the election to teach civic responsibility, to show how easy it is to register to vote and how the electoral vote is different from the popular vote.

Greene Central sends sample ballots home with students for parents to look over, Flick said. “Our town office has said that the number of people voting has gone up in Greene each year we have had a mock election.”