--- title: Elections and voting: ballots, counting and winning — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Elections and voting: ballots, counting and winning», a lesson of the politics course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An election is how a whole country, town or school chooses who will be in charge: everyone allowed to vote gets one s --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Politics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/) / Elections and voting: ballots, countin… # Elections and voting: ballots, counting and winning Lesson 2 of the politics course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/0/) — An election is how a whole country, town or school chooses who will be in charge: everyone allowed to vote gets one say, and the votes are counted to find the winner. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/1/) — On election day an ordinary place, maybe the hall where you do PE, becomes a polling station: a voter's name is checked on a list, they mark a paper in a private booth, fold it and drop it into a sealed box. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/2/) — Your vote is secret, so nobody can bully or pay you to vote their way; Mum can tell you who she chose if she wants to, but she never has to. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/3/) — After the polls close, the papers are counted, often by hand in big halls late at night, with watchers from every party making sure it is fair; a close result can be counted again, and the loser usually congratulates the winner. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/5/) — Voting is secret: a secret ballot means nobody sees your choice, so nobody can bully or pay you to vote their way. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/6/) — A polling station is the place, often a school or church hall, where people go to vote; they mark a ballot paper in a private booth and put it into a sealed ballot box. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/7/) — In the UK and Ireland paper votes are counted by hand in front of observers from every party; in much of the USA, machines scan paper ballots, and the paper can be checked again. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/8/) — Many countries let people vote by post or early, so people who are ill, away or busy can still vote. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/10/) — To concede is to accept that you lost; it shows supporters the election was fair and lets power pass peacefully to the winner. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/11/) — In the US presidential election, each state gives its votes to the winner in that state (two small states split theirs); this is the Electoral College, and TV shows it as a red (Republican) and blue (Democrat) map. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/12/) — A candidate needs 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes to become US president. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/13/) — A campaign is everything a candidate does to win votes, like posters, speeches and knocking on doors (canvassing); damaging someone's poster is wrong even if you disagree. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/14/) — A landslide is winning by a huge amount; a narrow win is a very close one. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/15/) — An exit poll asks some voters how they voted as they leave, then guesses the result; it is often close to the real result, but not always right. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/2-elections-and-voting-ballots-counting-and-winning/16/) — People disagree about voting by post: some say it lets more people take part, others say it is harder to check who filled in the form. - ← previous: [What politics is: deciding things together](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/1-what-politics-is-deciding-things-together/) - next →: [Who can vote, and why children cannot](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/3-who-can-vote-and-why-children-cannot/) - ↑ back to [Politics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/politics/)