Lesson Two

Why Vote?

Time

60 minutes

Aim

To allow young people to identify why it is important to vote and to encourage other young people to vote.

Learning outcomes:

  • Participants should have a sound understanding of the format of both UKlocal and general and Newham Young Mayor elections.
  • Participants should be able to describe at least one reason that someone might give for not voting and have presented a convincing counter-argument taking this viewpoint into account.

Instructions

In pairs, write down or discuss two differences between people’s right to vote in the UK today and in the past. Ask in pairs to feedback to the whole group.

Review of the basic format of a UK general election and Newham Young Mayor Election and make sure that they understand that:

  • The UK us divided into 646 constituencies (geographical areas that an MP represents).
  • There is one MP for each constituency, who represents everyone in that area and not just the people who voted for them.
  • Several different candidates from different parties or independent candidates will stand for election in a constituency and the one with the most votes wins (based on a first-past-the-post model).
  • The party with the most candidates winning a majority seats as MPs will be the party asked to form a government until the next general election.

Newham Young Mayor Election

  • Representatives can stand to be Young Mayor if they live, work or study in Newham.
  • Nominations open, and any young person between the ages of 11 and 17 are eligible to put their names forward.
  • Primary elections take place, and voting occurs over a seven-day period.
  • The 15 candidates with the most number of votes will go through to the next round of elections.
  • Candidates campaign for two weeks, and then voting opens for two days.
  • The Young Mayor uses the same electoral system as the UK general election (first-past-the-post)
  • The candidate with the most votes becomes the Young Mayor of Newham. The candidate with the second-most votes becomes Deputy Young Mayor, and the remaining 13 candidates become Youth Councillors.
  • Each school/college in Newham can elect two representatives to the Newham Youth Council.
  • All young people elected, including the Young Mayor, are in power until the elections the following year.

Group activity: considering the reasons why people choose not to vote

Show the young people the statements from the four imaginary people listed below. Put up large sheets of paper in each corner of the room (a corner for each person on the slide) and divide the participants into four large groups. Give each of the four large groups one of the people on the slide to think about. In small groups within these larger groups they should discuss the possible arguments to convince that person to vote, e.g. if only a few citizens vote then the people who represent us will be elected by a small minority of people, if you don’t vote you might get someone representing you whose values you are really against.

Ask the young people to write up at least one argument per small group on the sheet of paper. Every group should feedback one argument to the rest of the participants. Explain that they are going to use these arguments in the next activity that they do. Leave these sheets up as a reference for the next activity (which will probably last for another lesson after this one).

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