Second & Third year CSPE students enjoyed their Pop Politics workshop run by Johnny Fallon, who is a well-known political commentator and author.
The workshop sessions both of which lasted over two hours each, used the concept of building a communities, trading and then the need to develop laws and a system of electing the leaders of their communities.
The students selected their candidates to form a council, and then voted for their candidate using the proportional representation system. All aspects of elections were explored including the quota, count, transferring votes and spoiled votes.
The girls enjoyed the voting and tallying process, tracking the count results and seeing how the different representatives got elected. They also paid close attention to how the elected representatives then went through the process of choosing who they wanted to go into government with.
All of the students enjoyed the workshop and felt that it made the voting process much more ‘real’ and easier to understand, how we all need to participate in the voting processes.