Nearly a quarter of a million students across the nation have voted, and the results are in: President Barack Obama is the winner of the 2012 Scholastic Student Vote. Democratic nominee Obama won with 51 percent of the vote. Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, received 45 percent of the vote. Four percent voted for “Other.”

Students around the country cast online votes on the Scholastic News Election 2012 website, as well as through paper ballots printed in Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines. Voting closed on October 10, and Kid Reporters Andrew Liang and Shelby Fallin announced the results this morning on NBC’s TODAY Show.

The Scholastic Student Vote has been conducted for every presidential election since 1940, giving millions of kids from every state the opportunity to vote for a candidate. Since then, the results of the Student Vote have mirrored the results of the general election all but twice. In 1948, the kids voted for Thomas Dewey over eventual winner Harry Truman. And in 1960, kids selected Richard Nixon over eventual winner John F. Kennedy. In 2000, the kids of the Student Vote result picked George W. Bush. This mirrored the Electoral College result but not the result of the popular vote.

“The students have made their voices heard once again, and it proved to be a tight race,” said Elliott Rebhun, Editor and Publisher, Scholastic’s Social Studies Classroom Magazines. “The Scholastic Student Vote shows us that students are engaged and excited about the election, and has provided classroom teachers with a tool to bring current events to life and teach students about our country’s democratic process. While these students are not old enough to vote in the general election, it is a part of Scholastic’s mission to provide kids with the information they need to become good citizens – and to become informed future voters.”

You can find more about the results — including a state-by-state breakdown of how kids voted — on the Scholastic News Election 2012 website.