Week Five – Jss 2 Third Term Civic Education Lesson Notes

WEEK 5
Importance of Voting
The importance of voting are listed below

• To choose a desirable leader: Voting allows the general public to choose the leader of their choice without anybody imposing leadership on them.
• To effect a change of policy: The citizens vote for or against  a belief or ideology, if a government is not doing well, the people can vote such government out of power
• To exercise our civic right: It is a fundamental right that a person should vote and be voted for
• To reject a wrong leader: Voting during elections to determine the kind of life they want, through people’s vote, a bad leader can be voted out immediately.
• It serves as a checking sit tight syndrome: Africans like power, they stay put in power, they do not want to be removed, when people are well mobilized they can unseat an individual who wants to turn a political office into a permanent sit.
• To ensure convincing Electoral victory: When eligible voters go out to vote during election, the actual result is determined without any partiality.
• Other reasons are:
  • To exercise our civic and political right
  • To participate in governance
  • It is an avenue to make a constructive criticism to bad leaders
  • It gives us a sense of belonging.

Process of Voting
Voting is an easy exercise; the following steps are taken in the process of voting:

• Once an individual has a valid voter’s card, he/ she can approach a polling officer on the day appointed for election at the polling center.
• Present the voter’s card to the presiding polling officer who will make sure that the particulars on the voter’s card corresponds with the one on the voters register or the system for that particular polling centre.
• The presiding officer will then tear a ballot paper containing names and pictures of political aspirants and their party logo and hand it over to the eligible voter.
• The voter is then directed to the polling booth which has an enclosure so that the voting can be private to the voter.
• The voter uses the right thumb to touch the ink pad and presses the blank vote space on the ballot paper of a choice party.
• the paper is then folded back cleverly so that the ink does not spread, If the ink spreads across another party logo, the vote becomes null and void
• The ballot paper is then dropped into the transparent ballot box.

 Election
Contents – Electoral bodies
                 Electoral Malpractices in Nigeria
                 How to prevent electoral malpractices
Electoral Bodies
Electoral bodies are those who conduct and supervise election process. The constitution has provided for how elections should be conducted. Electoral malpractices, includes any act, omission or commission that attempts to or in essence circumvent the electoral process to favour a person, candidate or party. It is any wrongdoing affecting electoral procedures, electorates and electoral materials. Electoral Malpractice can also be defined as the manipulation of electoral processes and outcomes so as to substitute personal or partisan benefit for the public interest. The body in charge of election processes is called Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The body conducts election into federal and state electoral constituencies. Usually for the conduct of local government elections, the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) is in charge i.e. the state government takes over the conduct of the local government election.
The INEC and SIEC are responsible for the

1. Conduction of voters’ registration,
2. Keeping custody of voters’ registers
3. Printing of Ballot Papers
4. Supervision of elections
5. Declaration of results
6. When there is an election petition, INEC and SIEC are officials also invited to give evidence and defense at the tribunal.

Assignment

1. State 5 importance of voting
2. Describe voting process