Obama wins Scholastic kids vote election

NEW YORK, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Barack Obama won the 2008 Scholastic Presidential Election Poll over John McCain, 57 percent to 39 percent, results of the popular kids vote indicated Tuesday.

Almost 250,000 students in grades 1-12 voted in the Scholastic poll, which closed Friday, Scholastic said Tuesday in a news release.

Since 1940, the student vote results have mirrored the outcome of the general election all but twice -- when Harry S. Truman beat Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 and in 1960 when Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy.

Obama and McCain weren't the only vote-getters. Four percent voted for other people such as comedian Stephen Colbert, and teen sensations Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers, Scholastic said. Some even voted for themselves.

Scholastic Books' kid reporter Lya Ferreyra, a student reporter for Scholastic News Online, said the kid poll was important because it not only gives the youthful voters "the experience they will need to vote in the future, but it (also) allows them to have input on who should be the next president of the United States."