A UC Davis student will be the first to see the returns from California's statewide election on Thursday -- yes, Thursday. Political science major Michael Montesano, a White House intern, will monitor a computer program he wrote as it tabulates on-line -- for the first time -- the votes of more than 80,000 schoolchildren participating in the League of Women Voters' 1998 California Mock Election. He is one of several UC Davis students who have recently contributed to voter education by placing California voter guides and campaign finance information on the World Wide Web. "Students gain a tremendous sense of accomplishment from seeing their work published in a way that it is contributing to statewide efforts in voter education," says associate professor Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith, who assigns web-based projects in his political science classes. Janette Girod of Pasadena, a UC Davis senior majoring in environmental biology, designed the web pages visible at the mock election's web site . Although Montesano will oversee voter tabulation from a computer lab at the UC Davis Washington Center, the league will announce the results of the mock election at a news conference in Sacramento Thursday evening. Other projects include: * Senior Jamie Scheidegger of Sacramento adapted the league's guide to judicial elections for the web as an advanced academic project. * Senior Alicia Antonetti of Folsom put 20 students' research on campaign contributions on the California Voter Foundation's web site. Other students this fall will update the site as campaigns meet filing deadlines. * Political science students will help update the foundation's Internet Guide to California's Legislature, which UC Davis students helped create last year, to reflect election results.