Mock Election 2024
On 4th July, we held our mock election, which mirrored the general election, in order to give students an insight into how the electoral system works as well as into each party's political ideologies and manifestos for the 2024 general election.
The four parties involved were the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats and Green Party. Each party prepared a campaign video to present to the school, outlining the policies from their manifesto and plans as the incumbent party, alongside posters put up around the school in the lead up to the election. The candidates for each party also went to form rooms and presented their manifesto to students to inform them of the upcoming election and encourage them to exercise their right to vote.
After weeks of preparation and campaigning, the mock election was held on 4th July. Students were able to cast their vote during four periods of the day: before school, at first break, lunchtime and after school. A team of students was responsible for crossing out names on sheets and checking IDs of our sixth formers, replicating the official process. Voters were guided to booths, where they cast their vote and placed their ballot in a box. Afterwards, we counted all the votes in the ballot boxes for each party, discounting spoilt ballots, to tally up the totals for each party to reveal the winning party.
The results were as follows:
Green Party – 230 votes – 47.6% - winner
Liberal Democrats – 118 votes – 24.4%
Labour Party – 64 votes – 13.2%
Conservative Party – 43 votes – 8.9%
Spoilt ballots – 28 total – 5.9%
Congratulations to the Green Party for their win with a grand total of 230 votes, approximately 47.6% of the turnout!
Thank you to everyone who got involved with the mock election this year! A big thank you to the party leaders and their campaign teams who drove this election with their creative campaign methods, hard work, and dedication, especially given the short time frame they had. And, thank you to everyone who exercised their democratic rights and voted to have achieved a turnout of 63.8% with 483 votes cast, higher than the national turnout.
We wouldn’t have been able to run such a successful mock election without the support of all the students and staff, especially Mr Duncan, Mrs Lace and Mr Wilson.
By Sudiksha, Lara and Joshika
Curriculum and Current Affairs Committee