Clinton wins student vote in national election survey> Maine one of six states in Perot column

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — High school students in a national mock election chose Democrat Bill Clinton by a large margin, the sponsors said Wednesday. President Bush got only eight votes in the survey’s Electoral College breakdown.

Clinton received 1.49 million of the 3.43 million votes cast Monday and Tuesday. Bush had 914,769, Perot 825,971 and other candidates a total of 201,056.

That translated into 43.7 percent for Clinton, 27.8 percent for Bush and 16 percent for Perot. If the election had been real, Clinton would have received 504 electoral votes, Perot 26 and Bush just eight.

The student balloting had Bush carrying only two states (Alaska and Utah) to Perot’s six (Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon and Wyoming).

The vote was sponsored by Knoxville-based Whittle Communications and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Whittle operates the Channel One school television network, a 12-minute newscast with commercials that reaches 10,000 middle and high schools across the country.

Schools in every state except Hawaii participated in the voting.

The polling also included interviews with a sample of 7,337 students across the country. Results carried a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.