Two Mock Elections Activities

#1 MOCK ELECTIONS ISRAEL/USA

• With thanks to Nahum Ido and Aliza Panass, former shlichim.

This activity is a four-part process (three-part outside the USA) which can be enlivened with drama, demonstrations, during the campaign.

Week 1:
Commence with a slide or video trigger from the election campaign(s) and launch a talk or discussion on Israel; follow this with a division into US/Israeli party groups which receive information folders on the elections, party platforms, target populations. Include a timetable of the number of preparation meetings and the "election" date.

Week 2:
Planning and preparing campaign materials; distribution and demonstrations.

Week 3:
Mock Israeli election activity supervised by a "committee" which explains election procedures; provide a political room. Follow with a review - an evaluation of what participants identified with, how it felt, and how it went.

Week 4: (Outside USA, integrate some aspects into week 1)
Open night with guest speaker or panel presenting democracy, the role of youth in both countries with questions from "US" and "Israeli" parties about the issues involved. Can be turned into a phone-in activity for cable TV or radio.

#2 ELECTION ISSUES/VIDEO NEWS

1. Each participant receives a sheet with the following question:
   Order the following issues according to their importance to Israel:
   • continuing the current peace process [Oslo I and II]
   • settling the land
   • responding to terror
   • security along the borders
   • coexistence with the Palestinians
   • the economy
   • a united Jerusalem
   • reducing the social gap
   • education towards Jewish values
   • civil rights and free speech
   • aliya
   • civil marriages, divorces, and burials
   • non-Orthodox conversions
2. Look at the platforms of the parties running for Knesset. Find their views in relation to the above issues. (Use 4-7 or more parties, depending on the number of participants).
3. Meanwhile, discreetly create a news team. If people find no-one to team up with, or if there are one or two particularly large groups, invite a few of them (4 or 5) to work next door in a video news desk.
4. Immediately record a news bulletin about the Knesset being dissolved and set up a camera team who go next door to interview, while the group leader returns to the group, announces that the Knesset has dissolved itself in favor of early elections. Video-interview a representative from each party as they "leave the Knesset".
5. Each party can discuss the implications and make sandwich-board advertisements for a sit-in outside the Prime Minister's residence, where the video team can finish the interviews, asking what directions Israel should pursue in the next four years.
6. After the discussions, announce that the election campaign has commenced. Each party must put together its campaingn paraphanelia - slogans for newspaper advertisements, bumper stickers, jingle, leaflets, and a television commercial which will be filmed subsequently (the video team is already editing the first edition and preparing for the commercials).
   The party should strive to deal with the following issues through its multi-media campaign:
   • its position regarding the future of Oslo I and II
   • the future status of Jerusalem, Golan, and the territories
   • the rights of the Palestinians to autonomy or independence
   • the future of Jewish settlements in the territories
   • the relationship between religion and state in Israel
   • minority rights within Israel
   • security along the northern border with Lebanon
   Also, the groups should present:
   • the first three things they would do
     as well as:
   • the three things they would never do
     if their party were elected to power.
7. If there are only three or four parties, prepare for a TV panel debate, where the party leaders will be invited to participate; otherwise, ask each party to prepare a party political broadcast (2-minute length) to be recorded in the studio. This can be announced concurrently with tage 6 so that filiming can begin early.
8. Evening activity - the booths, sandwich boards are presented, followed by the edited video material in an "Election special".
9. VOTING:
   On different colored slips, into different boxes, e.g.: pink slips for the party vote and yellow ones for the Prime Minister. Mark the boxes and slips clearly; votes posted wrongly will be invalid.
10. Results are announced after polling, and the winning Prime Minister forms the new government.
11. Review

[Elections]