Ballot paper: This is the piece of paper you use to make your vote. It shows a list of candidates and voters have to write a cross next to their choice.
Candidate: A person who wants to be elected or has been nominated to be elected is called a candidate.
Canvasser: People who want a candidate to win can help them by becoming a canvasser for their election campaign. A canvasser asks voters who they will vote for and tries to get as many people as possible to vote for their candidate.
Constituency: The UK is divided up into 646 areas called constituencies. The voters in each constituency get to elect 1 MP to represent the people in their area.
Election campaign: Around election time, candidates and their supporters organise events and activities to convince people that they are the best person to vote for.
Electoral register: Across the UK there are electoral registers. These are lists of all the people who have decided they want to vote at elections. You must have your name on this list before you can vote.
Electorate: This is what we call everyone who is able to vote in an election.
Government: The institution which runs the country. The Prime Minister selects the Members of the Government from MPs, Lords and very occasionally senior people outside Parliament.
Manifesto: This is something that political parties write around the time of an election, which tells us what they would do if the got elected. A manifesto usually contains pledges (plans of action) on important issues and is often a big part of the election campaign.
MP: At a general election, the people in a constituency (area) can vote to decide who will represent them in Parliament. The person they choose is called a Member of Parliament or an MP.
Parliament: Where new laws are debated and created.
Poll card: This card is sent to everybody who is registered to vote – it has important information about the election like when, where and what time to vote.
Referendum: A type of election where people vote “yes” or “no” on whether a proposal is accepted or rejected. This means that the general public makes the decision directly, rather than their elected representatives doing it for them.
London Mayoral Election
What is the London Mayoral Election?
Every four years Londoners get to vote for their Mayor and for members of the Greater London Assembly (GLA). While many towns and cities have mayors the Mayor of London has a lot more power than any other elected official. They have the largest mandate out of any individual politician in the entire country.
What does the Mayor of London do?
The Mayor of London is responsible for a budget of £14.6bn which is used to run transport services, police and fire services and promote London’s economy. They set the budget and appoints the board of Transport for London (TfL), the organisation in charge of all the tubes and buses. They also set the budge for the Metropolitan Police, the country’s largest police force, and, along with the Home Secretary, appoint the commissioner for the Met.
How does the voting work?
There are three different voting systems used in the London elections. For the mayoral election a system called Supplementary Vote (SV) is used. In this system everyone ranks two preferences, if no single candidate gets over 50% of the first preferences there is a second round of counting. In the second round the top two candidates from the first preferences are kept and every other candidate is removed, the votes from the removed candidates are then reallocated to their second preference as long as the second preference is still in the count. Once all the second preferences have been reallocated the candidate with the most votes wins.