SOUTH KINGSTOWN –— If you were wondering how accurate students are as a gauge of how an election is going to swing, South Kingstown High School proved near dead-on in predicting Tuesday’s results.

Students pegged Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse as the next U.S. senator, defeating Republican incumbent Lincoln D. Chafee. They called North Providence Mayor A. Ralph Mollis, a Democrat, as the next secretary of state.

And they rejected the casino question – handily. Sixty-five percent of the students cast no votes, compared to 63 percent statewide.

But their true genius shone through in the local contests. They returned all the Democratic incumbents to the state legislature and accurately selected all eight Town Council and School Committee candidates. They even gave James W. O’Neill, a Democrat who ran as an independent for Town Council, the fifth council seat.

“They really do a pretty accurate job,” said history teacher Doug Carr, who helped organize the balloting with seniors in his American Government class. Many of the high school’s 1,350 students in grades 9 through 12 participated in the balloting, he said.

Was it an aberration? Are students merely mimicking how their parents will vote, or are they truly informed? Students hope to answer those questions in the coming weeks through a follow-up survey examining the role family, friends and the media play, Carr said.

“Probably family has the greatest influence … That’s what we concluded,” Carr said.

Students conduct polling every election season, but, as seen throughout Rhode Island, enthusiasm was particularly high this year, driven by the Narragansett Indian casino question and a potentially pivotal U.S. Senate race, Carr said.

“Students have a lot to say. There seemed to be a lot of interest,” he said.

They were off in a couple of cases. For example, they handed Robert J. Healey, the Cool Moose candidate, the lieutenant governor seat, but Democrat Elizabeth H. Roberts fended off Healey and Republican Reginald A. Centracchio, the state’s former National Guard commander. Carr speculated that Healey’s party name held particular appeal.

And they had Democratic Lt. Governor Charles J. Fogarty heading to the governor’s office. Governor Carcieri won that race with 51 percent of the vote compared to Fogarty’s 49 percent.