The Kahu Elections!

Last week, we went through the process of running an Election in our class.  The girls all received special 'Kids Voting' papers (they looked EXACTLY like the real thing) and got to cast their party vote and their candidate vote.  Some were on the Maori roll and some were on the General roll, so there were a few options to choose from.

Our issuing officers (Eva and Tamara) had a class list and crossed people's names off as they came up and collected their voting papers.  The girls had to fill out their voting paper in a private polling booth and then put their vote into the ballot box (where Tiara was on hand to help anyone who experienced any difficulty).  Once the voting process was complete, our returning officers (Jordan and Myra) tallied the party votes and the electorate votes for us.  Mr Dawson then put the results into an Excel spreadsheet, so we could see the percentages for each party and candidate.

It was a very worthwhile experience, especially as we had one voter who voted incorrectly (two party votes instead of one), and a couple of voters who wasted their voting power by voting for one of the extremely minor parties.  We had some very robust follow-up discussion around these issues.

Here are a few photos of the event, as well as the final results.  Looks like we're a left-leaning classroom!