Hello, my name's Mrs. Harris, and I'm the person who's going to be guiding you through today's lesson.

This lesson is called, Why is Registering to Vote Important? And it comes from a unit called, How does Local Democracy Work? By the end of today's lesson, you are going to be able to say, "I can explain how an eligible person can register to vote and why voting in local elections matters." Some of this content you might have heard a bit before, and some of it might be more challenging, but that's all okay, 'cause I'm going to be here throughout the whole thing, and I'm gonna guide you through, we'll do it together.

Here are some of the key words for this lesson then.

I'm going to say the word, and you are going to repeat it back to me.

Are you ready? Election.

Eligible.

Suffrage.

Majority.

This is our first learning cycle, who is eligible to vote in local elections? When residents live in an area, they are directly affected by lots of different things.

These things could be positive, or they could have negative effects on them.

So this could be things like schools, the transport that they have in the area, so buses, trains, and so on, road safety, and waste services.

And these services are run by the local council, however, when it's the people that use it, they often want to have a say in how those services are run.

One of the ways that residents can have a say in the way that their local services are run is via elections.

Now, that's when residents vote for the person that they want to be in charge of their area to lead their area and represent their views.

Elections and being able to choose the person you want to lead your area is a really key part, a really important part of local democracy.

As we've said then, because it's the residents that live that life and they experience life in that area every day, they often have so many different ways of how to improve or to change life in that area.

And so it's really important that they get their say, they get their opinions on who it is that runs the council, because the council, and the services it provides, it does affect people's life every day.

A quick check for understanding then, can you fill in the missing word? Mm-hmm, are one of the ways residents can have a say in the way their local area is run.

What's that missing word? I'll give you a few seconds to think about it.

Let's check the answer then.

What is it that's one of the ways residents can have a say in the way their local area is run? It is elections.

Well done if you got that one.

Now, we've just said, haven't we, that it's really important for residents to have a say in local decisions and who runs the local area, but not everyone in the UK is actually eligible to vote in local elections.

Aisha's is there to remind us that eligible means that you are allowed to do something because you meet all of the rules or the criteria.

So for example, you're eligible to start school when you reach a certain age, you're eligible to buy a bottle of wine when you turn a certain age, and so on and so on.

So eligible means that you meet all the rules.

So to be eligible to vote in an election, there are rules that have to be met about things like who you are, where you live, where you're from, and your age.

The right to vote is known as suffrage, that's one of our key words for today, suffrage.

Now, over the years, suffrage, that right to vote, has been expanded to include more people.

So in the past, voting was actually only allowed for certain groups and it was usually wealthy men who owned land, and everybody else, no.

Men as well who were considered to be lower class, they were not allowed to vote, and also all women were not permitted a vote either.

This all began to change in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it wasn't an overnight fix, it took years and years for the changes to happen.

It wasn't actually until 1928 that women gained the same voting rights as men.

A quick check for understanding then, so suffrage is defined as, wealthy male landowners, the age a person is allowed to vote, or the right to vote? Which of these is the definition of suffrage? I'll give you a few seconds to think.

Let's check that answer then.

Suffrage is defined as the right to vote, that's correct.

And Aisha is there again reminding us that suffrage was not universal in the UK, in other words, it wasn't equal all the way across the UK.

For example, the right to vote for women was fought for over decades and decades.

So this eligibility criteria then, what makes a person eligible to vote in the UK? To be eligible to vote in local elections in the UK today, a person must be over 18, or, 16 or over in Scotland and Wales, be registered at an address in the area that you want to vote in.

You can't be legally excluded from voting, for example, so most people in prison are not permitted to vote.

Now, most residents can only have one vote in one area.

Now, some people can have more than one vote.

If you are a student at university and you live in Blackburn and you go to university in Bristol, you'll be allowed a vote in both areas.

Now, as well as that eligibility criteria of age and where you live, if you live in Scotland and Wales, you also have to meet this criteria if you are a citizen of Britain, Ireland, or another country but you're allowed to stay in the UK or the Channel Islands or the Isle of Mann.

So the criteria are on the previous page and this criteria you would be allowed to vote if you live in Scotland and Wales.

It's slightly different in England and Northern Ireland, you're eligible to vote if you meet the criteria that we said before.

And, if you are a citizen of Britain, Ireland, or a Commonwealth country, Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal or Spain, or from any other EU country, as long as you've been allowed to stay here since the end of 2020.

So it's a little bit more complicated there, isn't it? A quick true or false then.

So the legal age for being able to vote in the UK is 18, is that true or false? Take a few seconds to think.

So the legal age for being able to vote in the UK is 18, true or false? It is false.

No it's not.

Why? I'll give you a few seconds to explain, you can tell me, or you can tell the person next to you if there's someone there.

All right, so then why is that false? Well, because the voting age in England and Northern Ireland is 18 and above, but in Scotland and Wales, that's 16 years old.

Well done if you've got that one.

It's time for your first task then, task A.

In this task, all you have to do is to complete the table.

You're going to read the statements down the left hand side and decide if you think it's true or false.

If you think the answer is false, you are going to put what the correct answer would be in the furthest right hand column.

Pause the video to give yourself the time to do it, and then when you come back, we'll go through the answers together.

How did you find that one? Let's go through the answers together then.

To be eligible to vote in all the UK nations, you must be 18 or above, is it true or false? Well, we can see here that it's false, isn't it? Because in England or Northern Ireland it's 18 and above, but in Scotland and Wales it's 16 and above.

The next one down, you must be registered at an address in the area you want to vote in, that's true.

The next one, people who are legally excluded can still vote, that's false, isn't it? If they're legally excluded, that means by law they are not allowed to vote.

And so the correct answer might have been, in order to vote, you must not be legally excluded from voting.

For example, most people in prison are excluded.

And the last one here, women have always had the same voting rights as men.

Well, we've discussed that, haven't we? That was false.

No, it wasn't until 1928 that women actually got the same voting rights as men.

Really well done if you've got those answers, what a fantastic start you've made.

Let's move to our second learning cycle now, how does a person register to vote? Now, we've looked at all of the eligibility criteria, so what rules, what criteria does a person have to meet before they're allowed to vote.

But, before they can vote, even if they're eligible, even if they meet all that criteria, they have to register.

If you think about a school register, or if you go to a club and there's a club register, that means your name will be on that list to say, yes, they're part of this club, they're part of this school, or this class, and they are allowed to be here.

It's kind of the same for registering to vote, you have to be on that list to say yes, they're allowed to vote.

And how you do that is by getting your name on the electoral register, or sometimes called the electoral role.

And once you're on that role, that means you are officially allowed to vote in the next election.

A quick check for understanding then, fill in the missing word.

The name of the register a citizen needs to be on in order to vote is called the, what? Take a few seconds to think, and we'll go through it together.

All right, so the name of that register then is called the electoral role, good, or the electoral register, either of those is great.

Well done if you've got the answer.

So to register to vote then, a person must be 16 or over, or if you're in Scotland and Wales, you can be 14 or over.

You must have a National Insurance Number, that's if you're age 16-plus, and that's the same in Scotland and Wales as well.

And you've got to meet the voting eligibility criteria.

So all the things we discussed before like age and where you live.

To be able to get on that register then, you still have to provide your details.

So it's things like your full name, and the details if you've changed your name, so if a person's got married or they've changed their surname for any other reason, that would need to included.

You'd need to include your date of birth, your current address, national insurance number if you're 16 or above, and your nationality, so that's the country that you're from, or the country that you are classed as a citizen of.

And also if you live now, or if you have lived out of the country at any point.

Laura's here to tell us that registering to vote can be done online for free, and it literally does take five minutes to do if you've got your information ready.

Aisha is telling us that it doesn't just have to be done online, it can be done on paper as well, so these can be printed from online, or you can ask your local electoral registration office to post one out to you, and then you send it back.

And Jacob's telling us something really important, that if a person's details change, for example, your address changes, this has to be updated on the electoral register.

It can be done in the same way as registering for the first time, so again, just five minutes.

Another important reason to be on the electoral role is that lots of organisations will check a person's identity using the electoral role.

So things like taking out a bank account, taking out a mobile phone, things like that can be made much easier if you're on the electoral role, because that already knows your identity and can check who you are, who you say you are is correct.

A quick check for understanding then.

So which of these would a person not need to provide if registering to vote? So think about those details that you would have to give, which one of these would you not have to give? We've got name, education details, nationality, or date of birth.

Which of these would you not need to provide? Take a few seconds to think.

All right, the one you don't need is education details, yeah.

Laura there's telling us that a person's educational background doesn't matter when you come to register to vote, or to vote itself, it's not a factor at all.

In 2023, an organisation called the Electoral Commission, they completed some research which shows that they think up to 9 million people who are actually eligible to vote can't vote because they're not registered.

That might mean that they're not registered at all, or, they're not registered at the correct address.

Now we've said, haven't you, you can only vote in the area that you live.

So if you're not registered at the correct address, that means when it comes to polling day, that election day, they're not actually allowed to vote.

More research done by the Electoral Commission and the Office of National Statistics, that shows that the people who are most likely to not be registered to vote are people who are younger, are students, they've maybe recently moved house, they have disabilities, or they're from minority backgrounds.

Let's fill in the missing word then.

If a person is not registered correctly at their correct address, they are not, mm, to vote on polling day.

What word can fill in that gap there? Take a few seconds to think.

Let's check the answer then.

So they will not be, what? Eligible to vote, or allowed to vote, if you've got that one as well.

Yeah, that's right, you've got to be registered at the correct address to vote in the area that you live.

Now, a bit more about the electoral commission then that we've just mentioned.

That's an independent organisation, which means nobody controls it, it's not controlled by the government or so on, and they help manage elections and make sure that they're fair.

A huge part of the electoral commission's job is to make sure that everybody who is eligible to vote has the chance to be involved in this democratic process that we have in the UK.

This really matters, because the results of elections can change people's everyday lives, and those people in charge make decisions on really important things like healthcare, schools, the environment, and it's important that everybody gets their say.

So think back to that 9 million people who are eligible to vote but they're not registered to vote.

When you've got huge amounts of people like that that are not voting, you get lots of groups left out of this decision making process.

So where it said younger people are less likely to vote and students are less likely to vote, or people with disabilities are less likely to vote, all of those people are left out of that decision making about who they want to rule their country, who they want to run their local council, and so on.

So the Electoral Commission, with other groups, they all try to get together to make sure that everybody who can be eligible to vote does get involved and has their say, especially those people who don't know how to register, or they might even think, "Well, my vote doesn't matter anyway, so what's the point?" One of the ways organisations like the Electoral Commission try to get more people to get involved in voting is by something called a voter registration drive, which is to try and help people who wouldn't normally vote.

And it does that by, first of all, helping them and supporting them to register to vote, because remember, you can't vote unless you've registered to vote.

It also teaches them more about the voting process and what happens before and after, and then also encourages them to actually go to that polling station on the election day to cast their ballot.

Quick check for understanding then.

So the purpose of a voter registration drive is to encourage the people to register, to learn about the voting process, and the third one is to show up at the, where, on election day? Is it to show up at the electoral role, to show up at the campaign office, or to show up at the polling station, which one of those is it? Take a few seconds to think.

All right, the answer is to show up at the polling station on election day.

And Jacob's reminding us that the polling station is the place where people go to vote.

So this might be a church hall, it could be a community centre, a school building, or any other public building.

Let's talk a little bit more then about voter registration drives.

These happen in a variety of ways, which might include going door to door.

So this often happens in areas where the whole area has got quite a low turnout for voting.

So people will knock on doors, they'll meet the eligible voters, and they'll encourage and support them to sign up to vote.

You might have some on-the-ground events, so things like street stalls, talks, and sometimes school visits and universities as well.

In universities there might be special booths to get students to sign up when they first register at university, register for university and register to vote at the same time.

And in schools they often have it as well, when pupils become old enough to register to vote, they'll have people to go and help them do that there.

Things like flyers and posters are really helpful, maybe leaflets with step-by-step instructions to how to register to vote, and these sometimes are placed in community spaces for people to see.

Social media is also a really good way because it's fast, it doesn't cost a lot of money, and you can access it all the way around the world to get the vote out.

Sometimes posts might use hashtags, things like #YourVoteMatters, to create a bit of a buzz around it and to remind people about important dates.

So if you want to vote in an election, there will be a registration cutoff date, and you must register before that point, and social media is fantastic for getting those dates out and to remind people.

Sometimes you might even find celebrities or other influencers that get involved to try and persuade people to get involved in our democratic process of elections.

An example of one of these voter registration drives was in October, 2019, and that's when lots of groups got together to try and encourage these missing millions to register to vote.

Now, the deadline for voting was midnight on the 26th of November, 2019.

So starting from the point that the election was announced, up to the point where registration for voting closed in November, in that time, 2.

8 million people registered in total, and on one day alone, 300,000 people registered to vote.

That is absolutely huge, and that has a massive impact on what the election results could be, because you've got so many more people voting that it could really change who actually gets voted in as a councillor.

Now, compared to the previous election, that was almost double the amount of people who registered to vote, so that was a huge, successful voter registration drive, wasn't it? Quick check for understanding then, so which is the missing voter registration drive method here? We've got door to door, on-the-ground events, flyers and posters, and what was that other missing voter registration drive that's often used? Take a few seconds to think.

The missing voter registration drive method is social media.

Well done if you got that one.

We're onto task B already.

So with this one, you have to fill in the gaps using the words in this word box below.

All you have to do is read through the paragraph, read the words in the word bank, and place them into the correct spaces.

Pause the video to give yourself the time to do that, and then we'll go through those answers together.

Was that okay? Did you manage it all right? All right, let's have a check then.

We have your answers as.

First of all, every citizen is responsible for their own voter registration.

If you are 16 or over, or 14 in Wales and Scotland, you must make sure that you are on the electoral role or you won't be able to vote.

Millions of eligible people are not registered.

Registering only takes five minutes, and can be done by paper form or online.

Every vote matters, because more votes means that more people get a say in how their local area is run.

Did you get all of those? Really, really well done if you did.

Great job.

It's time for our third learning cycle now, called, What Happens After a Local Election? When people have registered to vote, and then they've gone and voted, what happens then? Well, once the election has taken place, the votes get counted and the results are announced.

Now, every ward, that's a smaller area within a larger council district, each ward is allocated a certain amount of councillors.

Now, these might be from the same political party, they might be from different political parties, or they may be from no political party at all, and they're called independent candidates.

So look at the figures at the bottom here, two are from the same political party, and two are from different political parties, or they may be independent.

Now, each councillor for each ward, they're then added across the whole district and across the whole council.

So if one party wins lots of seats in the election, they might get something called a majority.

Now, a majority means they've got more than half of the total seats available.

Now crucially, this is really important to remember.

It's not just 50%, not just half, but 50% plus one councillors.

All right? So they've got the majority if they've got half plus one councillor.

Now, in this council here, our little example council, there are 17 seats available and this orangy-red party have got nine of those seats, so that's more than half of the seats available, so that means they have a majority.

A quick check for understanding then, the meaning of majority when talking about seats on a council is, 50%, 50% plus one, or does it mean more seats than any other single party? Take a few seconds to think.

The meaning of majority when talking about seats on a council then, is 50% plus one.

I'm sure you got that one.

Well done.

Okey doke, let's have a look at some example councils then.

So here we have party A with 36 seats, we've got party B with 16 seats, party C with 12 seats, party D with three seats and party E with one.

Can you see the colour coding there? Yeah? There are 68 seats in total, which shows that party A has 36 seats, that is more than half of all the seats, because half of 68 would be 34, so they have more than half, which means party A has the majority.

Example Council 1, we've got party A, the blues, with 28, we've got party B, the pinks, with 50, we've got party C with one, party D with one, and there are 80 seats in total.

Now, half of 80 is 40, so they'd have to have 40 plus 1, 41 seats, and as we can see, party B has got these seats, which means they have the majority.

Council 3, it's got 44 seats in total, and we've got party A has three, party B has 15, party C has two, D has 16, and party E has eight.

Now, 50% of these seats would be 22, does any of those parties have 22 seats plus one, does any of them have 23? No, they do not.

Which means that in this council, no party has the majority, they share the power.

You're going to work out which of these has a majority council now, so I'm gonna show you some little mini example councils.

So in the first one, A, the largest party has got 15 out of 28 seats.

In the B, the largest party has got 16 out of 32 seats.

And C, the largest party has 24 out to 44 seats.

You decide which one of these shows a majority council, I'll give you some time to think about it.

Okay, well A, if it's 28 seats, so half of that would be 14 plus one is 15 seats, so A does have a majority, doesn't it? Because it's got the 14, the 50%, plus one, 15 seats.

What about B, that 16 out of 32? Well, half of 32 is 16, so they've got 50%, but have they got 50% plus one? No, so B is not a majority council.

And then C, we've got the largest party has got 24 out of 44 seats.

Well, half of 44 would be 22, so 50% plus one would be 23, and the largest party's got 24.

So does that have the majority? Yes, they do.

So our answers are, A and C are both majority councils.

Really, really good job if you've got that one.

Well done.

Now, how many councillors there are in each political party, or no political party if they're independent, that all affect how the council is run.

A majority council can make a huge difference, because if everybody in that party votes yes to a decision, it means that more than half of the councillors have voted for it.

And that means if you get more than half of the people saying yes, and less than half saying no, then the decision's going to be yes, isn't it? 'Cause more people have voted.

So that means the majority party can push through most of what they want to do, most of their decisions are made quite easily, because more people are saying yes than saying no.

So if they wanted to build a new park, or improve school funding, or change bus routes, then councillors get a vote on that.

So the more councillors in one party, they're more likely to agree with each other, and so what they want is more likely to happen.

If the council doesn't have a clear majority, it could be harder to get things done because there might be more disagreements, and decisions might not be made so easily.

A council that's been working with a no-majority is Walsall council.

Now in 2011, they've had a no-majority local council ever since, but after the May, 2018 election, this was still the same where the Conservatives, so we'll say they're blues on this one, they had 30 seats, Labour, we'll say they're the pinks on this one, 28 seats, and all of the councillors were just two, and there were 60 total seats available.

So as you can see, the conservatives there have exactly 50%.

They don't have the majority, because they don't have 50% plus one.

If you look at the two councillors where we've got dark blue and the dark green councillor, they've actually got quite a lot of power, because they could choose to side with the Conservatives or with Labour for the decisions.

So say they're going to change the bus routes, the Conservatives want to change the bus routes, but Labour say no, we don't wanna change the bus routes, who the dark blue is and who the green is, if they decide to go with this side, the bus routes will change, if they decide to go with this side, the bus routes won't change.

And that's sometimes why it can be really hard to get decisions made, because if you don't have a majority, you are always wondering if decisions are gonna go through or not, depending on the votes of just a few.

In the May, 2019 election, this changed, because the Conservatives won just two seats from the Labour councillors.

That was it, that's all it took.

What this meant, now, they've gone from 30 seats to, if you watch the dots, to 32 seats, and that takes them to at least 50% plus one.

Yeah? So now they have 32, Labour have 26, and the others on two.

And this meant that people who decided to vote for the first time, this made a direct difference to who had overall control of the whole council.

And that made decisions much more easy to make.

A quick true or false then.

So having a majority council may make decisions easier to make, is that true or is that false? A few seconds to think.

It is true.

Yes, it will make it true.

And why? Why might it make decisions easier to make? You can discuss it with the person next to you if there's somebody there.

Why? Well, a majority council allows for enough votes to reach a decision without delays.

So if you've got a clear majority, there's less chance of arguments or disagreements, which then can prevent that progress, prevent those decisions being made.

Well done if you got that.

You're onto your final task, task C.

So you're part of a team which is organising a voter registration drive, and it is your task to prepare the text for a leaflet that's going to be given out during the event.

This text needs to persuade people who might not already vote about the importance of having their say in local government, because as we've said, every vote matters.

So how can you persuade people to vote and get involved? You might want to include information about what local elections are.

You might want to include information about how to register to vote, what information they would need to register, why it's important to vote, and why voting makes a difference, for example, you could talk about majority councils.

You might also want to include something like a slogan or a catchphrase or a hashtag to make things really memorable.

It's a really good idea now to pause the video to complete this task, and then when we come back, we'll go through it together.

Remember to be really persuasive and really encourage people to get involved in voting.

All right, how did that go? Shall we have a look at an answer then? Now, this is what I've said, so yours might be something similar to this, but it's not gonna be exactly the same.

So let's see if we've got some of things in common.

"Your voice matters.

Your future matters.

Your voice matters.

#VotingMatters.

What are local elections? Local elections decide who will represent you in your community.

Your local councillors make decisions about services, schools, transport, housing and more.

They play a direct role in shaping your daily life." And then a subheading now about how to register to vote.

"It's so quick and easy to register.

You can do it online or by post.

All you need to be is a British citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland or a Commonwealth citizen, aged 16 or over and be living in the UK.

Or you might have said 14 plus if you're in Scotland and Wales.

The information you'll need to register, that's the next subheading.

"All you need is your national insurance number, your address, your date of birth, and your nationality.

It's that simple." Next subheading, "Voting makes a difference." "Voting is your right and responsibility.

It's how you ensure that your voice is heard, that your community is represented and that the decisions made reflect your values and needs.

Every vote counts and can be the deciding factor in which party has the majority control over your local area.

The more people who vote, the more likely we are to have leaders who represent all of us." And the final subheading and paragraph, "Don't let others decide for you." "Register today, and make sure your voice is heard in every election.

Suffrage is a hard-won right, so use it." And then I've repeated again, "Your vote matters.

Your future matters.

Your voice matters.

#VotingMatters." Do you think that was persuasive? Do you think it informed potential voters about the information about what an election is and why it matters? And do you think it pushed forward that your voice matters, your future matters, and if you don't vote, you're letting others make those decisions for you? Let's summarise our lesson then, why is registering to vote so important? It's important that residents get a say in who wins their local council.

One way this can happen is by voting in elections.

The right to vote is known as suffrage.

Not everyone in the UK is eligible to vote.

People must meet age, nationality and residency requirements.

Before a person can vote, they must register to be put on the electoral roll.

They can register online or by paper form.

After a local election, votes are counted, and the party with the most votes may be able to form a majority local government.

If they have, remember, 50% plus one of all the seats available on the council, this can make decisions easier to push through, with fewer disagreements and delays.

There was some really important information in that, and some really complex information, and I think you have been fantastic.

Well done.

Hope to see you again soon.

Bye.