To: State Desk

Contact: Mike Byrne of Yes on 85, 866-828-8355

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Results from the mock student election sponsored by the California Secretary of State continue to trickle in, with final results not expected until Friday at 5 p.m. -- but there has been at least one big surprise as the votes are being counted: students have voted yes in large numbers on Proposition 85, the parental notification before abortion measure on the Nov. 7 ballot.

So far, of all the propositions on the ballot, more students have voted on Proposition 85 than on any of the other initiatives. Altogether, 71,359 students had cast votes on Proposition 85 as of 5 p.m. on Oct. 31. At that time, the parental notification measure was clinging to a narrow lead: 50.01 percent yes, to 49.99 percent no.

Officials at the Secretary of State's office said Wednesday that they had originally planned to cut off the counting on Oct. 31, but decided to extend the deadline until Friday "so that a few more schools could get their results in." Currently, 377 of the 545 schools participating in the mock election have reported and had their votes tallied.

The mock vote was sponsored by the Secretary of State's office and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction "in an effort to better educate our future leaders on the democratic process and to make them aware of the importance of voter participation," according to the Secretary of State's Web site.

The vote was held on Oct. 24 at 545 middle and high schools across California, with 235,547 seventh through twelfth graders eligible to cast ballots. The ballot included the U.S. Senate race, the governor's race and all 13 state propositions.

With slightly over 69 percent of all participating schools reporting, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record) held a 16-point lead over state Sen. Richard Mountjoy, and Democrat Phil Angelides was ahead of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger 34.48 percent to 32.68 percent. Students were also rejecting propositions 1B, 87 and 88.

Details of the student vote are available online on the Secretary of State's Web site at: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/studentmockelection_06_results.htm. The site contains a county-by-county and school-by- school breakdown of the vote.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

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