Elementary Education
Campaigns and Elections 101
Using Today on Election Day, by Catherine Stier, students learn about voting, then participate in a mock election activity.
Books
- Vote! By Eileen Christelow
This book follows the steps involved in electing a public official, with an emphasis placed on the voting process.
- The boy made of lightning: The First Children’s Book on the Life of Voting Rights Pioneer Willie Velasquez
by Barbara Renaud Gonzalez, Grades 3–5. Available free on iPad.
- Ballots for Belva: The True Story of a Woman’s Race for the Presidency
by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, Grades 3–5. This illustrated biography tells the story of Belva Lockwood, a woman who ran for president in 1884. She had to fight her way into and through law school and was the first woman to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Lillian’s Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
by Jonah Winter. An elderly African American woman, en route to vote, remembers her family’s tumultuous voting history in this picture book publishing in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Secondary Education
Voter Suppression
Students analyze a political cartoon about voter ID and voter fraud, consider multiple perspectives on the issue, and form their own opinion about the issue.
Barriers to Voting
Students will complete a 1964 voter registration form as a starting point for discussion on barriers to voting and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Students will learn about their state’s current voter ID laws and develop arguments for and against the laws. Students will then review a scenario for a state’s new voter ID laws to critically discuss the implications of such a law.
ABA Dialogue on Voting
The Dialogue on Voting is a facilitation guide for discussion in classroom or other group settings. and This Dialogue on Voting Resource Guide is an educational resource for presenting the 2014 Law Day theme of “American Democracy and the Rule of Law: Why Every Vote Matters.”