ELECTION candidates at Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School were feeling blue as the Conservatives won the school’s Election Special.

The school devised an election process to mirror the national poll, complete with candidates, manifestos, campaign agents and its own returning officer.

Students put themselves forward as Conservative, Labour, Green, Liberal Democrat and Independent candidates, and the results were announced on the same day as the General Election by the school’s returning officer, year 13 student Bill Armstrong-Mortlock.

Turnout for the school election was very high, at 85 per cent, and the Conservatives ran out the winners in an election using the Alternative Voting system.

“They polls had predicted a comfortable win for Independents, but were wrong – no surprise there!” said Tony Halsall, the school’s director of business services.

“The three polling stations dealt efficiently with the students waiting to vote, and at the declaration Bill Armstrong reminded the students of the reasons why we carried out the election, to improve the levels of political understanding and participation in the democratic process.

“The candidates wore with pride their party rosettes, took the applause and congratulations for a good, maturely-fought campaign.”

The count took about one and a half hours, and using the Alternative voting system it went down to the final round, when in a two-horse fight the Conservatives came out on top.

The Liberal Democrats were the first party to be eliminated, followed by the Greens and Labour, and the Conservatives came out the winners in the final round against the Independent candidates.

Students from all year groups were asked to put their names forward to stand for election under the main party banners or, as in Parliament, as an independent candidate.

Each party was allowed up to four candidates, and in total 23 candidates from across the seven year groups put their names forward to take part.

Hustings were held in the different year and House assemblies, as well as lunch time ‘meet the voters’ sessions, and to bring a sense of realism to proceedings the Parliamentary candidates for the Congleton constituency were invited to attend one of the hustings.