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As an elected candidate you will be a spokesperson for the students of your school. To be elected you will have to convince the students of your abilities, your commitment and your ideas.

  • Your school has a set of rules for elections. You must follow these rules as a candidate.
  • A candidate can represent a party or stand as an independent.

A political party is a group of people with a set of shared beliefs whose purpose includes the election of candidates to a representative body. Parties may have:

  • a platform - a broad statement of the aims of the party
  • policies - proposals for putting the party's aims into practice
  • promises - commitments to take action if elected

Independent candidates do not belong to a party. They can make policy, platforms and promises on their own.

Advertising is used to tell the voters what your promises are and how to vote for you.

Think about:

  • fundraising - you may need to pay for your how-to-vote cards, posters and letters
  • letter drops - to tell the voters what you will do if you are elected
  • posters - to remind the voters when the election is on and who to vote for
  • meetings and rallies.

Glossary - click to expand

Quota

The proportion or percentage of votes required for a candidate to be elected to the Legislative Assembly. For the ACT’s 5 member electorates the quota is approximately 16.7%

Percentages

Votes for parties, groups and candidates are always expressed as a percentage of the total formal vote in the same column. Formal and informal votes are always expressed as a percentage of the total votes in the same column. Total votes for an electorate are expressed as a percentage of the enrolment for the electorate. Total votes for the ACT are expressed as a percentage of the enrolment for the ACT.

Swings

The swings shown represent the difference in percentage terms between the result for each party and “other” candidates and the corresponding result for the 2012 election:
  •   For parties that contested the 2012 election, the swing shown is the percentage of the votes received by the party in 2016 less the percentage of the votes received by the party in 2012.
  •   For parties that did not contest the 2012 election, the swing shown is the percentage of the votes received by the party in 2016.
  •   The swing figure for “other” candidates compares results for 2016 non-party candidates with the results obtained for 2012 non-party candidates combined with any results cast in 2012 for parties that are not contesting the 2016 election.

Further information on the voting process

The total percentages of formal votes for each party. A formal vote being a valid vote; i.e. a first preference for a candidate belonging to the respective party.

The percentage of votes for each party, less the votes percentage for the respective party during the previous election.

The number of formal votes counted, the percentage, and the total enrolment

The proportion of progressive quota recieved for each of the top 5 parties, for each electorate.

The proportion of progressive quota recieved for each of the top 5 candidates in each electorate.