High school student elections are often improvised affairs, and voting doesn’t often get more complicated than dropping a piece of paper into a shoe box. But what if students at a local high school could cast their ballots much the same way that adults do, using state-of-the-art tamper-resistant electronic voting machines? Would they take the whole process a little more seriously?

One D.C. school tried to figure that out last week.

Between teaching students at Calvin Coolidge High School in Takoma about the civic responsibilities they’d eventually face, third-year social studies teacher Lauren McKenzie placed a call to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics with what could have been thought of as a stretch of an pitch — would the District’s election authority want to run the student election at Coolidge?

The plan was simple: drum up interest in student government and the upcoming homecoming festivities while making those age-old lessons about civics and democracy just a little more real for students on the cusp of entering the very real world.

The board agreed, and last week sent staff to set up two of the same touch screen voting machines used for local and national elections. But instead of programming the machines to allow voters to choose between elected officials from the mayor on down, each machine was set so that the school’s 550 students could vote for student government leaders, class officers and the homecoming court. (Shoe boxes and paper ballots these weren’t.)

McKenzie, who herself had served as a student government vice president while attending Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, helped recruit candidates, saying that once students stepped up to run, classmates became more engaged in the process. Twenty-three students signed up to run for class officer positions, with sophomores fielding nine contenders for four offices. (The four school-wide student government positions remained uncontested.)

“It took a lot of motivation, but what I realized halfway through my pleas and reaching out to students that I have relationships with is that student motivation gets it done,” she said. “They really needed to see leaders in their own school. They were the hook.”

Kareema Badawi, a 15-year-old running against two other sophomores to be class vice-president, pitched her candidacy much the same as a more seasoned campaigner would.

“I like to make a difference in the school. Although the school is a good school, like everywhere there’s some change that needs to be made. I think that if I’m vice president I can make a difference,” she said, adding that she had come to Coolidge this year from another school because of its “better educational opportunities.” (Enrollment at the school is open through October 6.)

Brandon Jackson, an ambitious junior running for student government president, homecoming prince and Mr. Coolidge, spoke of his desire to “make people see Coolidge as more than it is.” He planned on organizing a fundraiser to help distribute food to needy families during Thanksgiving, and looked at the position as natural way to further develop the leadership skills he picked up in the school’s ROTC program.

His campaign slogan? “It’s a Jackson Thing.”

Jasmine Lilly, a senior vying for the post of student government secretary, who sold herself as “trustworthy and loyal,” even saw the opportunity as a path to something bigger. “I wanna run for president,” she said with a giggle, adding that she’d focus on teenage pregnancy.

Thelma Jarrett, Coolidge’s principal, was impressed by the results she had seen on Wednesday and Thursday, the days voting took place.

“We’ve had elections in the past, but never had this many kids participate. It’s usually low participation — ‘oh, it doesn’t matter.’ But now, they’re very serious about it. I’m glad we’re changing the minds of our students as it relates to voting. These kids need to understand how important it is to vote,” she stressed.

The students seem to have gotten the message — according to the elections board, 163 students voted using the touch screen machines, and more still used paper ballots that were being tabulated separately. Additionally, 83 students submitted voter registration applications, amongst those 16-year-olds that will receive their voter registration cards in the mail once they hit legal voting age.

For now, though, the results are being held until October 13, when they’ll be announced during a school pep rally. McKenzie looks forward to the years to come, saying that every year the school’s student government gets bigger.

“Next year, I anticipate that more students will do this,” she said.