LESSON PLAN: BRINGING OUT THE VOTE
By Syd Golston, an educational administrator, curriculum writer and historian

Subjects: Government, civics, social studies

Time: This lesson requires one 50-minute classroom period, plus homework time to distribute the flyers, if the teacher desires the class to do so.

Lesson Objectives
The objectives of this lesson are acquiring information about voter turnout, analyzing why Americans don't vote, and citizen activism through creating community publicity about the 2004 Presidential election.

Overview:

• Students compare the turnout in their state's last presidential election (2000) with voter turnout in other states and with turnout in 34 countries around the world.
• They examine reasons often cited for low voter turnout in the United States.
• Each student designs a flyer for neighborhood doorknobs, incorporating the statistical data on voter turnout in their state and in other countries, and a slogan combating common excuses for failure to register and vote.
• The class may choose one flyer to reproduce and distribute in the neighborhood, with the approval of the school's administration for this part of the activity.

Correlations to National Standards

Materials Needed

• Copies of the handouts "Voter Registration and Turnout - 2000" (PDF) and "International Voter Turnout" (PDF)
• Paper for student flyers
• Handout: "Common Reasons Cited for Low Participation"
• Overhead: Sample Flyer
  

Procedures for Teachers

1. Distribute the handouts "Voter Registration and Turnout - 2000" and "International Voter Turnout". Review the abbreviations: VAP = Voting Age Population, REG = Registered Voters, T/O = Turnout.
2. Note your state's turnout, the highest and lowest states, and where your state ranks among the 50. If there's time, you might like to examine with the class why voter turnout should be so high in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin (political traditions from the 19th century, educated population, etc.)
3. Present the handout "Common Reasons Cited for Low Participation" on an overhead, and by a show of hands, rank them in order of most likely to least likely reason.
4. Ask one student to look up online the polling place for the area around your school, and the times the polls are open.
5. Show the Sample Flyer on your overhead. Point out how it uses the statistic on the handout sheet about voter turnout in Florida, and the space for polling place and times.
6. Ask students to design their own flyer on the back of their handouts. (Optional: you can hand out construction paper and marker pens for this activity.)

Procedures for Students

1. Listen to your teacher's description of this activity. You will be comparing voter turnout in your state with turnout abroad, and making a flyer to encourage voters near your school to participate in this November's presidential election.
2. What percentage of your state's potential voters went to the polls in the last presidential election? Which state produced the highest turnout? The lowest? Where does your state rank in turnout?
3. Here are some common reasons cited for low participation in the United States. Rank them in order of your estimate of their importance:
   

• Americans feel confident in the stability of their system, so they are unmotivated to get involved in politics - especially when times are good.
• Americans are lazy; they have it too easy.
• It is difficult to register and to vote on a work day. (In many countries, votes are taken on weekend days.)
• Americans are cynical about outcomes in a two-party system.
• Americans are cynical about politics and politicians altogether.
• TV election coverage on Election Day concludes outcomes early, and discourages voting later in the day.
• Campaigns are much too long in the U.S., and people tire of the whole thing.
• People feel that only one vote can't count much.

Make a flyer to submit at the end of this period. Use color and design features to make your flyer eye-catching.

Extension Activities
The teacher may choose the best flyer, or the class might view all of them and vote on all the submissions with colored dots. The teacher can then run off 10 flyers for each student, and on a designated afternoon, students can put the flyers out in their neighborhoods.

Correlation to NCSS and Civitas Standards

• National Council for the Social Studies Standards, X: Civic Ideals and Practices: b. Identify, analyze, interpret, and evaluate sources and examples of citizens' rights and responsibilities.

  c. Locate, access, analyze, organize, synthesize, evaluate and apply information about selected public issues-identifying, describing and evaluating multiple points of view.
  f. Analyze a variety of public policies and issues from the perspective of formal and informal political actors.
  j. participate in activities to strengthen the "common good," based upon careful evaluation of possible options for citizen actions.
  h. evaluate the degree to which public policies and citizen behaviors reflect or foster the stated ideals of a democratic republican form of government.

• Civitas Standards (National Standards for Civics and Government): "Forms of political participation," p.136.

About the Author Author Syd Golston is an educational administrator, curriculum writer and historian. She taught secondary Social Studies for 20 years, wrote lessons and in-serviced teachers in 40 states as Supervisor of Education for Kids Voting USA, and serves now as Dean of Students at Alhambra High School in Phoenix, Arizona. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council for the Social Studies.