An election is coming
There is an election soon. You are eligible for the first time and you do not know much about it.
What do you do first?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
"It makes no difference"
Somebody tells you there is no point voting because one vote never changes anything.
What is worth saying?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
In most places you have to register before you can vote, and there is a deadline. People miss elections over this far more often than they miss them over apathy.
Local elections decide a lot
Housing, transport, bins, planning, some of schooling. Turnout is much lower, which means each vote counts for more.
Decide what you are judging
Work out the two or three things you care about most, then find out what candidates say about those. That is a better order than reading everything.
One vote and many
Your single vote almost never decides an election. Whether people like you vote at all decides quite a lot, because parties campaign for groups that turn out.
Step 3: Try It
These ones do have right answers.
What Is Decided Where?
Sort by which election tends to decide it.
Different elections decide different things.
Tap something to move it.
- Empty
- Empty
Step 4: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
Why does low turnout make a vote worth more?
Step 5: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Register and pick three
- Find out how to register where you live, and do it when eligible.
- Write down the three things you care most about.
- Find out which level of government decides each one.
Why: Knowing which election decides your three issues tells you which ones you cannot afford to skip.
Step 6: What You Learned
- Register before the deadline. That is where most missed votes go.
- Local elections decide a lot and have low turnout.
- Pick your two or three criteria, then compare.
For the grown-up
This lesson deliberately teaches mechanism and not preference. Registration deadlines, what each tier decides, and how to compare candidates are factual and useful.
Taking a young person with you when you vote, and talking about how you decided without telling them how to decide, is the most effective civics teaching there is.
The point about parties campaigning for groups that turn out is the strongest available argument for voting, and it is one most young people have never heard.