If I'd voted a straight party ticket, perhaps taking the kids along would not have been a bad idea.

My husband, who’d cast his ballot before leaving for work, cautioned me against it. His warning fell on deaf – but determined – ears.

And so, on a dreary, drippy Election Day morn, the three kids and I set out for our polling site.

It wasn’t bad planning on my part; it was intentional. What better way to instill reverence for the right and responsibility to vote than by taking the gang along?

For weeks, they’d seen the campaign signs staked in yards and heard chatter about the virtues and vices of this or that candidate.

Now it was time for the grand finale.

Last Tuesday, close to 69 percent of eligible North Carolina voters turned out. There was much oohing and aahing over that number, the highest since 1984. I try to be a glass-half-full kind of person, but I couldn’t help but wondering what those other 31 percent were doing on Election Day that was more important than helping decide the leadership of their nation.

In such a spirited and contested election year, how could nearly a third of voters opt out?

Maybe the importance of having your say wasn’t instilled in them as children.

I certainly wasn’t going to make that mistake.

So there we sat, baby sprawled on the floor, scribbling on those little slips of paper that alerted voters that a straight-party vote did not include a vote for president. My 3-year-old kept trying to color on my ballot. My 5-year-old requested to fill in the circles for me. I issued a firm no, while doing my best not to quash his curiosity about the political process.

“This is really important,” I told him. “It’s a job for a mama.”

But their turn was coming, at the Kids Voting table.

Kids Voting is a nonprofit, nonpartisan outfit motivated by a desire to teach kids about democracy.

The program began 20 years ago in Phoenix and started advancing throughout the country in 1992. Wake County first participated in 1996.

The program seems to make a difference. Researchers found that students who participated in the Kids Voting curriculum at school asked more questions about the election than children who weren’t a part of the program.

A fact sheet about Kids Voting in Wake noted that a Stanford University researcher found that voting students “act as ‘change agents’ for the non-voting adults in the family, boosting parents’ interest in the election process.”

The students, from kindergarten through high school (and sometimes younger – the volunteers at our Kids Voting station cheerfully handed over a ballot to Shira, my preschooler who can’t read) learn about voting in their classrooms. At the polls, they get their own ballots with the same candidates and issues that their parents receive. Their ballots are kept separate from the real ones; employees of the Wake County Public Schools Testing Office scan and tabulate them.

Fortunately for the pre-reading set, Kids Voting ballots feature pictures of the candidates along with their names. Shira selected two candidates because they reminded her of Papa and Grandma. (“Grandma,” incidentally, was Sen. Elizabeth Dole.) She loved filling in the circles so much that she proceeded to vote for multiple candidates in another race.

I’m not about to divulge my politics here, but I will say that Kids Voting tallied two votes for the Republican ticket from my progeny.

My son supported John McCain “because McCain makes me think of the Canes.” My daughter chose the senator from Arizona because “his name sounds like a candy cane.”

I could not rightfully take issue with either statement.

I was just glad they gave some thought to whom they were going to support. It’s more than 31 percent of the grown-ups in this state did.

Bonnie appears Mondays on TriangleMom2Mom. (Results for Kids Voting Wake County should be released Monday).