“When I read your book to my fourth graders, I thought we would spend an hour discussing it; to my surprise, we spent a week!”
—from a teacher I met at a conference. She made my day!

Below are discussion ideas and links to websites which will be helpful when talking about voting with your students.

And remember, we are asked to vote more than once every four years! We vote for governors, senators, mayors, school board members, bond issues—all opportunities to discuss how voting affects our lives: adults AND KIDS!

http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Voting/Learn.shtml
(an index page to learning about government and voting)

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/

http://pbskids.org/democracy/
also: http://www.pbs.org/teachers Search ‘voting’—there are links to 107 resources for all ages!
http://kidsvotingusa.org/ election activities
http://votesmart.org/ Information about local, state and federal elections
http://pbskids.org/zoom/fromyou/elections/pdfs/ZOOMvote_guide.pdf
http://www.vermontvotesforkids.com/ materials useful for teachers and kids in any state.
http://www.youthleadership.net/ Resources for teaching civic involvement.

http://www.votesmart.org/ Information about local, state
and federal elections

http://www.smartvoter.org/ Election information
from the League of Women Voters. You can find your own local elections.

Google search candidates’ names for more information. Most have their own websites.

Many people think that who or what we vote for doesn’t affect their lives at all. NOT TRUE!
The air we breath, the water we drink, sidewalks, parks, roads, schools, health... to name just a few, are all affected by how we vote. Ask your students to think about ways that government laws and policies are connected to their lives.

http://annenbergclassroom.org/

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/ Teaching and learning with the New York Times—the link below covers the 2012 election.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/election-2012-teaching-ideas-and-resources/

Discuss the questions voters are asked.
Does the way the question is phrased affect the answer?
Are the answers sorted by gender, age or other distinction?
Have your students conduct a poll on a topic of interest to them.

http://www.pollingreport.com/

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/

http://www.ibopezogby.com/

http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx

A librarian at an elementary school in Potsdam, NY used this site to create polls with her students: http://www.polldaddy.com/

Where do we learn our facts: From ads? TV? The internet? How do we know our ‘facts’ are reliable?

http://www.factcheck.org/ This non-partisan site evaluates ‘facts’ as stated by political ads and the web rumor-mill. You can ask your own question.

http://www.politifact.com/

With a pencil and paper? On a machine with levers? On an electronic touch screen? Are ballots optically scanned? Is there a way to recount the votes? Can anyone tamper with the ballots? Can people vote in advance? Absentee?
—Encourage your students to go to a polling station with their parents.
—Set up a mock polling station in your school and have the kids vote.

http://kidsvotingusa.org/

http://votingmachines.procon.org/

http://www.fairvote.org/mock-elections#.UDE7rI7fL8s Lesson plan for mock election

http://democracyday.com/sample-resources.html

http://www.youthleadership.net/

Look at the timeline at the back of VOTE! and you might be surprised
who won the right to vote and when.
—Ask your students if their parents could have voted 100 years ago.
—How many years do your students have to wait until they can vote?
This year, 2012, there are new challenges to who can vote. Several
states have passed new Voter ID laws which require voters to present
photo IDs before they can vote. Some of these laws are being challenged in court. For more information, try the website below:

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/voter_id

Voting involves a lot of numbers: how many votes, percentages. And what happens when there are three or more parties? If you want to do some interesting math, discuss INSTANT RUNOFF— an option to the way we vote now— involving voting for second and possibly third choices, thus avoiding the confusion when so-called “spoiler” third parties split the vote. (For a brief explanation of Instant Runoff, see page 46 in my book.) Also visit the websites below. You’ll have fun with math and diagrams!

http://www.fairvote.org/instant-runoff-voting/#.UDFBT47fL8s

http://www.instantrunoff.com/the-basics

http://www.chrisgates.net/irv/votesequence.html This site has an interactive explanation of what might have happened if Instant Runoff had been the system of voting the Florida, 2000 presidential election when there were four candidates. Remember that?