’Voter turnout with special regard to the first time voters’ was the title of the conference of 2004 hosted by Tirana, Albania.
A short resume of the conference is to be found here
Elections in Europe, the annual publication of ACEEEO covered the topic in its second volume as well as in the special edition of 2006.
Handbook on youth voters’ education
The ACEEEO implemented the project called ”Non armis,sed vi suffragiorum" (By the authority of the ballot, not the force of the bullet), the goal of which was to make youth understand the importance of participating in the political processes of the democratic life, particularly the right to vote and to stand as a candidate at elections. This project supported by the European Commission contained different activity plans e.g. discussions, exchange of best practices, publication of writings, managing a website. In the frame of this project we issued a handbook which is useful for formal as well as extracurricular voter education activities. We enclosed a CD to the handbook which contains also interactive education materials, interactive quiz and interesting annexes.
First time voters in the House of the Nation
One of ACEEEO’s most recent programs is called “First time voters in Parliament”, which gives an excellent opportunity not just to see our House of Parliament, but also to learn and ask about the election process. During the visit a 30-minute-long film is presented to teach about election history, so they can see where we came from, and about the current election system. A little present belongs to the visit; all of the students receive a DVD of our national symbols.
www.firstvoter.org
The www.firstvoter.org website is launched and it is available in English, Russian and Hungarian. The website serves as an informational forum based on web, which widens the knowledge of European youth about elections and voting. In the realization of this project young voters from Russia, Hungary, Spain, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lithuania took part. We would like to introduce also some innovations in our website and develop some new tools and menu on it. We created a communication surface with an internal communication system including forum and message board. This system is available for registered users. We are planning to organise additional common actions with our partners, youth organisations and such a system could make easier the communication.