New Zealand curriculum framework

How to use the worksheets

Worksheet contents

How to participate

Worksheet 23: Join the Underage Voter's Campaign

How to cast your vote and what happens on polling day

The ideas for this activity need to be checked with the relevant authorities: social studies teachers as well as the initiators of the underage voters campaign (who would need to raise some points with the Chief Electoral Officer etc) to answer:

Which of the following steps should be done

• by the organisers,
  
• by the school administration;

• principal;
  
• Board of Trustees;
  
• by the social studies teacher;
  
  • by the students;
    
  • Parents' Association;
    
  • Parent and other volunteers.

A preamble should be drafted, accentuating ideas such as these:

• "get informed on the parties who seek your parents' vote
  
• draw up the questions you want to ask them
  
• Homework - discuss the questions with your parents
  
• At school - discuss what the parties seem to offer that answers those questions
  
• So you want a say in electing the party that might meet your needs"
  

The worksheet might unfold as follows (with the difficult bits taken away from the kids and dealt with by adults).

Discuss - How do you vote in a General ElectionHow do you get enrolled?

• Make a school electoral roll, of those who want to vote in this election
  
• one group draws up the registration documents
  
• all of you who want to enrol, get enrolled on the school enrolment list
  
• one group asked to ensure that this list is available in the polling booths near your school where your parents will vote
  
• assuming the Chief Electoral officer approves this arrangement
  
• discuss what will happen in the polling booth on election day
  
• who will be there? Scrutineer etc (appointed by the parties) , polling clerks ( appointed by the representative of the Chief Electoral officer)
  
• discuss- can we appoint our scrutineer
  
• how could we organise this?
  
• what does the scrutineer do?
  
• what does the polling clerk do?
  
• discuss- how secret is my vote?
  
• if its secret, why do they tick my name off the list of voters and put a code on it and on my voting paper?

• What happens if I do not vote?
  
• What reasons might somebody have for not voting?

• One group should organise voting papers for the underage voters campaign.
  
• One group needs to organise what happens in the local polling booths on election day.
  
• One group needs to organise an underage voters campaign ballot box, so that there will be one for each polling place.
  
• One group needs to identify where voting booths are in our electorate.
  
• One group needs to organise private voting booth to be used only by underage voters (in a place also where adult voters do not get disturbed).
  
• One group needs to contact a local newspaper, radio, TV, internet newsgroup or other interested media to see if it will carry reports, including the results, from the underage voters campaign.

• Could one of the polling clerks be appointed by the school to receive our underage kids vote?
  
• Could our polling clerk issue our voting paper?
  
• Could our scrutineer mark our names of the electoral roll our school provides?
  
• Could our polling clerk and our scrutineer do the voting count just as the adults have their's done?
  
• Could our polling clerk issue the results to an electorate counting office staffed by members of the underage voters campaign?
  
• Could our electorate results be sent to an underage voters campaign national Chief Returning Office?
  
• the results, reported as they come from booths, electorates and national underage voters campaign offices, get offered to participating media.

Plan the follow up after the candidates chosen by the underage campaign have been selected...