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GALENA — Democratic Sen. Barack Obama won by a landslide over Republican Sen. John McCain in a mock election by Galena high school students on Monday.

The election was hosted at the Galena Interior Learning Academy and Sidney Huntington School during first-period classes. About 90 percent of the students took part. There are 140 high school students.

Obama received 69 votes to McCain’s 31 votes.

The mock election was sponsored by the two high school journalism classes. Paul Apfelbeck has been teaching journalism at the Galena Interior Learning Academy for the past seven years.

“I think it’s important for students to experience what it is like to vote as a citizen,” Apfelbeck said.

Apfelbeck said he was not surprised by the outcome of the mock election because he thinks young people like change and that Obama represents that because he’s new and young. McCain is older and represents more of the same to the students.

Apfelbeck said he was surprised Gov. Sarah Palin’s presence as a vice-presidential candidate didn’t boost the votes for McCain. He thought since Palin raised here and has connections to the Alaska Native community she would boost the vote for McCain.

The community of Galena will sponsor mock voting for underage voters on Election Day. Any child in Galena can participate, and the results will be announced afterward.

Like all elections, there were some problems with voting. One class was accidentally left out, Apfelbeck said, and teachers had to track down the students to get their votes. Another class turned votes in late Monday evening.

“I can understand how tough it is to run an election,” he said.

Apfelbeck wants to do more mock elections in the future.

“I would love to do this again. This was very successful,” he said.

Of the 140 potential student voters, 117 ballots were turned in. The voting results:

• Barack Obama and Joseph Biden — 69 votes.

• John McCain and Sarah Palin — 31 votes.

• Chuck Baldwin and Darrell Castle — 7 votes.

• Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez — 2 votes.

Two ballots were incorrectly marked. Write-in votes were cast for Kaitlin Ivanoff and Richard Sommer (2 votes), Mr. and Mrs. Hugs (2 votes), Jack Green (1 vote) and Dillon Pitka (1 vote).