Maybe voters are afraid of the small booths, the machines, or the hanging chad. Perhaps young voters just don’t know what to expect.

Whatever their fear, a 2003 study from Representative Democracy in America: Voices of the People found that only 66 percent of 15- 26-year-olds thought voting was part of being a good citizen.

Knowing how to vote, what to expect as voters, and becoming informed voters will help teens overcome their psephophobia and go to the polls when they’re adults. Mock student elections can give teens the experience and confidence they need to cast their ballots when they’re old enough for the next election.

Inside the School has reviewed student online voting sites based on the following criteria: supplemental materials, lesson plans, online voting, and ease of use. Here are our top picks:

Youth Leadership Initiative. ****

Voting date: October 20 – October 30

Will students vote if World Wrestling Entertainment’s wrestler Rey Mysterio tells them to? University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and its Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) are thinking that the wrestlers have influence on youth that stretches beyond the ring and costumes.

The YLI, a service of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, has an easy-to-use student voting site and will overwhelm you with the amount and quality of its teaching materials.

Supplemental materials. YLI sends participating teachers a big packet in the mail that includes a countdown to the election poster. Each day before the election, you can open up a little door to reveal a trivia question and answer. (That’s where I picked up that neat psephophobia word.) I also received a voter issues booklet with questions that candidates should answer. The WWE Smackdown Your Vote! sponsors the voter issues booklet as well as a big issues poster with diva and superstar wrestlers. All of the YLI materials are attractive, informative and eye-catching.

Lesson plans. The lesson plans are extensive and available online. Many are available in both English and Spanish and some can be accessed in audio forma. Lessons are tagged according to level (high, middle, or elementary school). Large topics include the Foundations of American Government, the Constitution, Congress and the Legislative Process, and the Political Process. Each topic has six – 20 individual lesson plans with materials to download.

Online voting. Teachers who register with the site will receive a code to identify their class or school and they can set their voting preferences (online or paper ballots). YLI offers printable teacher instructions and step-by-step printable student instructions as well as online demonstrations of the voting process. Ballots are generated according to congressional district and will reflect the choices of on the ballots in your school’s voting district. National results will be posted online on Friday, October 31.

Ease of use. The demonstration and printable materials make the YLI site very easy to use. You can download a press release to give to your local media as well as printable decorations for voting day. My only criticism is that YLI gives teachers a lot of information and options. Some teachers might feel overwhelmed with the extensive nature of the site.

National Student/Parent Mock Election. ***

Voting Date: October 30

The National Student/Parent Mock Election recommends having a community tea with Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln. You can invite other White House historical figures to come and bring the media along with them. (Tell John Wilkes Booth to stay at home.)

A White House Tea with guests in historical costume and character is one of the ideas that the National Student/Parent Mock Election recommends to generate interest in its nationwide student mock election. Election organizers can also hold a political rally, a town hall debate, or stage an imitation political convention.

Supplemental materials. The National Student/Parent Mock Election hosts an interactive online campaign game that quizzes players about our basic freedoms. The set-up is good: Congressional candidate Roberta Glass wants to censor kids and pre-approve all music, games, and books for children. The town’s kids are upset, but the child rights theme isn’t worked into any of the campaign quiz stops. The kids’ rights frame appeals to elementary and middle school level students, but the quizzes at the campaign stops are geared toward high school kids. The questions are tough and include matching quotes from former Presidents and Supreme Court Justices with freedom concepts. The graphics are great and the campaign stops are clever, but the mismatch between the young kid frame and the older kid questions might disturb some students. The game provides links to resources for students to study before taking the quizzes. Instead of offering position papers, the resources are links to sites like Wikipedia. A search in an Internet search engine would probably yield the same study materials.

Lesson Plans. Teachers can print out issues guides that are written for the current year’s election. The guides are well done with an overview of the topic (economy, energy, health care, war, and education), where the presidential candidates stand on each issue, and a variety of activities students can perform to learn more about each issue. The activities are heavy on essays, but also include conducting a survey, role-playing, and Socratic Seminars.

Online voting. Once you register with the site, the National Student/Parent Mock Election offers three options for voting: individual online votes, kiosk (shared computer) votes, or paper ballots. Individual students or kiosks will receive a registration number to ensure that students cast only one vote. For paper ballots, teachers need to collect, tabulate, and record vote totals on the computer.

The National Student/Parent Mock Election does not offer an online demonstration of its voting procedures, but it does have practice voting from October 1 – October 17.

Ease of use. The National Student/Parent Mock Election claims that it is the largest voter education program, serving over one million students in 2006. The materials are good, and the site offers both a teacher and student voting guide.

Channel One News’s OneVote. *

Voting date: October 20 – 24

Give Channel One News your e-mail address and they’ll get back to you about their voting program. Teachers and students who visit the site, at least at this posting date, are going to be disappointed in the depth of the materials at the OneVote site. The site has great visuals and links to Channel One and NBC online news footage, but little else.

Supplemental materials. According to a press release, teachers who visit ChannelOneNetwork.com can download tools like banners, posters, and lesson plans. However, at the end of September, none of this was available on the site.

Under the heading Fun and Games, students can take quizzes to test their knowledge of the political process. Each quiz comes with a teen-centered advertisement. The quizzes are tough; the only one that might be fun is the quiz that helps teens figure out which political party fits them best.

Lesson plans. Nonexistent at the end of September.

Online voting. Online voting takes place October 20 – 24 and results will be posted online on October 29. OneVote has not provided any teacher or student guides for the voting process.

Ease of use. Entering in an e-mail address for a future update is pretty simple; however, teachers won’t know the voting procedure until sometime in October. Teachers who like to plan ahead will want to avoid OneVote.

The best thing about all of these online student voting options is that they’re all free and you can pick and choose among the three for the best combination of materials to suit your class.

There are just as many voters aged 18-30 as there are 65 and older. Making use of these election year student voting opportunities will help give your students a voice in the 2012 election and beyond.

Cinematic maps. The cinematic maps play like a movie and show how the states have changed in population and politics from the 19th through the 21st centuries. When you select a map series, you can pause, rewind, or fast forward the player. Clicking on the year opens up the Wikipedia entry for that year’s election in a new window.

Elections 1840 – 2004 is a series of cinematic maps that illustrate the changes in voting trends over time. It’s fascinating to watch the changing politics in the South, especially in 1864, when those states disappear. Most of them reappear in the 1868 presidential election, but the colors after Reconstruction are interesting to watch, too. The maps tie in both the presidential candidates and the major news event of the time like the Stock Market Crash, Reconstruction, or World War II.

Voting America also has cinematic population maps that show how the white and black populations have stretched across America to the West and have gathered around cities.

Interactive maps. The interactive map shows voting and population trends across the country and county by county. Voting America tells you up front that the interactive map is processor- and memory-intensive. In other words, it takes a long time to load and it might not show up well on your classroom computer. It’s wise to test the feature first and give your computer person a heads-up that you’re thinking of using the site in class.

The interactive map allows users to overlay demographic information, total votes, voter turn out, margins of victory, and political parties.

Video experts. The last feature of the site is probably the most useful. Experts analyze maps and provide insight into America’s changing population and voting trends. You’ll find professors who use the maps to illustrate the coming of the Civil War, the role of third parties in presidential elections, political party realignment, and close elections. Again, this is a resource-intensive feature that might not play well on all computers. It’s a good idea to test it and to have a word with your computer person before you plan a lesson around the features.