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    Student Activities Who gets to vote in Victoria? Work in small groups for these activities. Activity 1: Understanding key termsSo far you have investigated Acts of Parliament that made it easier for men, and later women, to vote in elections for the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council, as well as stand as candidates in these elections. Today voting in Australia is compulsory. It was not always so. Over time, certain reforms have been introduced in the way people vote. Politicians argue that these reforms have made our system more democratic. Find out what each of these terms means.
Check your definitions or explanations against those in the Victorian Electoral Commission's glossary at www.vec.vic.gov.au/Glossary/WP_Glossary.htm. Prepare a presentation to explain one or more of these terms to someone who has never voted before. Send your ideas to:
Activity 2: Which ones applied in Victoria and when?Click on each of the links below to find out which six of the electoral practices you investigated in Activity 1 apply, or have applied, in Victoria at some time in our history. In some examples the answers may be different for the Assembly and Council. In other cases an electoral practice may not have applied in Victoria. You should provide evidence from each act to prove that it describes or identifies a particular voting practice such as secret ballot or compulsory voting. If there is no evidence, you can assume it does not apply to Victoria.
Note: Sometimes you will not find out when a particular practice was introduced. However, you might identify the date when it was abolished. This is also evidence of its existence. Note: Not all Electoral or Constitutional Amendment Acts have been provided here. As students of history you should therefore consult a second source of information. Read 'Key dates' at www.parliament.vic.gov.au/key.html to search for information that might help you complete the exercise. Activity 3: Which one is fairer?Reflect on the following question: Should the person with the highest number of primary votes (first-past-the-post) or the person with the highest number of votes after the distribution of preferences (preferential voting), be elected as your Member of Parliament? Read about these different voting systems and then cut up the ballot papers provided on the activity sheet, First-Past-the-Post or Preferential Voting?. Distribute the ballot papers and sort them according to their first preference votes. Count the number of first preference votes each candidate received. Record the result on the tally sheet on the activity sheet. The candidate with the highest number of first preferences would win using the first-past-the-post system. Record these results. Now take the votes of the candidate with the LOWEST number of first preference votes and distribute this candidate's votes to the candidate on each ballot paper who received their SECOND preference. Recount each candidate's votes and record this. Remember you only have two candidates left. The candidate with the highest number of votes wins if you use a preferential voting system. If there are four or more candidates it becomes more complicated. Discuss:
Activity 3: New voting laws?You are now the government. You decide to bring in two new laws about voting. The first law forbids people using a donkey vote. Discuss:
Return to the ballot papers from the election in Activity 2. Take out all the donkey votes. There are nine of these. What would be the result of the election now using first-past-the-post and preferential voting? Discuss:
As a government your second decision is to introduce optional preferential voting. You interview the 44 voters from the last election and they complete mock ballot papers. These are recorded on the activity sheet, Optional preferential ballots. Recount the votes and see if there is any change in the result. Discuss:
Activity 4: At what age should we vote?As you have seen in various activities, the voting age has been reduced over time from 30, to 21 and in 1973 to 18 years of age. Some people have suggested that the voting age should be lowered to 16 years. (The first proposition for the activity) Move into three groups to show your personal response to this idea: Agree, Disagree and Unsure. Develop arguments to support your group's position. Share and debate these arguments as a class. Some people who agree that the voting age should be lowered are divided into two groups:
Decide to which of these groups you would belong. Work in two groups, one group for each of the two options. Discuss your option and develop arguments to present as part of a class debate. Finally decide upon your personal position on these issues after listening to both sides of the argument in the debate. Share your personal/class positions on these issues with:
Activity 5: Making the system betterBrainstorm things you think could be done to improve:
Use this as the basis for preparing an interview or survey of your peers, family and friends. Collate the results and use your findings to prepare a class chart or report about these two matters. Again share your findings with your local Members of Parliament and the Victorian Electoral Commission. You could invite these people to your school to hear, and be presented with, a written or diagrammatic response about your ideas on these issues and those in the previous activity. Links
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