Lessons · Teaching · voting, elections and why turnout matters
Who may vote, how it is counted, and why turnout decides things
Voting is how representatives are chosen and how most public decisions are ultimately settled. The right to vote was extended over two centuries by amendment and by law. Turnout differs sharply between elections, and low-turnout local elections are often the ones with the most direct effect on daily life.
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In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by a state certification officer. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
A pupil who understands turnout understands something real about power: the school board and the local council are decided by very few votes and control the things nearest to them. That is more useful than memorising the stages of a presidential election.
How to think about it
Follow one decision from a vote to its effect. Then compare the turnout of a national and a local election and ask which one changed anything they can see from the classroom window.
Worked example
Amendments and laws extended the vote by race, by sex and by age over two centuriesEach one took an organised campaign, as the rights lesson showed.
Federal, state and local elections choose different offices on different cyclesWhich is why there is an election almost every year somewhere.
Turnout in local elections is usually far lower than in national onesSo a local vote weighs more, which is the opposite of how it feels.
Local offices decide schools, policing, roads and planningThe things a child can see, decided by the elections fewest people vote in.
Your turn
Name the measure of how many eligible people actually voted.
The proportion who actually vote is the
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Teaching elections as only the national one. Most decisions that reach a classroom were made at a level with a fraction of the turnout, and that is the point worth making.