Election Edge Support

Setting Up Your Account

Welcome to Election Edge! Once you’ve completed your purchase, you will receive an email containing a registration link. Click this link to open an account creation screen. If you are a teacher and have purchased a license for your class to use as well, ensure you choose “Parent, Teacher or Admin” during the account creation process. Once you’ve created your account, you can log into the application at https://electionedge.secondavenuelearning.com/login. If you purchased multiple licenses, you will receive multiple links in the same email message. You must create accounts at each one of these links to activate those accounts.

Linking Student and Teacher Accounts

In order to use the Run Your Own Election Feature, you’ll need to link your students’ accounts to your teacher accounts. First, make sure your teacher account has been set up as described in the section above. Log into the application and take note of the six-digit Facilitator Code in the top-left corner of the screen. During the account setup process for the students, ensure “Student” is selected and enter the Facilitator Code in the appropriate field. This student can now take part in any elections set up by your teacher account. Repeat this process for each student account you’d like to add.

Election Edge's Election Primers provide students and instructors with two primer videos, one for the Electoral College and one for the Presidential Primaries.
Each primer video supports students and instructors as they explore the origin and function of the United States Electoral College and the Primaries. Specifically, primer videos help educators and learners:

• Explore the processes behind the electoral college and the primaries.
• Discover how these processes have changed over time.
• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of the current election process, from the primaries up to the general election.
• Learn about proposed alternatives to the electoral college system and the primary system.
• Visualize important concepts and categories.

The Election History feature allows you to visualize historic presidential elections with data all the way back to George Washington.

• Select an election year to view a map depicting that year's election.
• For each historical election, you can reveal the participating candidates, key issues surrounding the election, interesting facts, states that joined the union after the previous election, and questions to spark exploratory thought.
• On the map, states that did not yet exist are shaded light grey, and states that were Confederate at the time, or prohibited from voting, are shaded dark grey.
• The illustration of some states' borders may not reflect historical boundaries. For instance, the state of Virginia encompassed the modern territory of both Virginia and West Virginia until 1861. Massachusetts included what is now Maine until 1820, and Georgia, for a brief period, was considerably larger.

Election Edge's Primary Pursuit updates as the Presidential primaries occur with the latest data.

• Choose which party's primaries you'd like to view. You can toggle between parties at any time.
• Use the filters on the left-hand side to see all the different ways a state can hold a primary.
• Select a date from the calendar to see all of the events that happened or will happen on that date.
• Selecting a date in the past will display the map as it appeared on that date, as well as how many delegates were pledged to each candidate at that time.
• Click or touch a candidate's name to learn more about each candidate.
• Click or touch a state on the map to see more about how that state runs its primary, as well as a detailed breakdown of the results.

Poll data in Election Edge is updated weekly during the election cycle with the most recent data available.

• Click or touch the 'Poll Data' button to view the most recent national poll data.
• Click or touch a state to view the most recent poll data available for that state.
• While viewing a state, click or touch the magnifying glass icon at the bottom left of the poll graph to expand the graph scale.
• While viewing a state's poll graph, hover over or touch any data point to view additional information about that date's poll.
• States with no poll data are shaded grey.
• Poll data sources for a given state can be found on the Sources Cited page.

Prediction Central allows learners to predict state-by-state results for the next Presidential Election and share their results with classmates, family, and friends. Students can also take the Prediction Challenge, which will compare their submitted Prediction Map to those of their classmates after Election Day to see whose prediction came closest to the actual results.

• The map defaults to the most recent poll data.
• Select a solid, leaning, or tossup color from the left sidebar and click or touch a state to assign that color, and its associated prediction, to a state.
• Under “Explore State Information” select a state from the pull-down menu to view detailed population, voter registration and campaign contribution information for that state.
• Click or touch the circle in Nebraska or Maine to control the electoral vote split allowed in those states.
• "Save/Load my map" button: saves up to ten different maps with customized names for simple reference.
• To load a saved map, click or touch the name of a saved map in the Save/Load sidebar.
• "Map Sharing" tab: share your predictions with friends by giving them your map code, or entering one of theirs and clicking "Apply Code".
• "Clear my predictions" button: clears the map of all party assignments.
• "Assign current poll data" button: resets the map to its default state.
• "Load 2016 party results" button: assigns the results of the 2016 election to the current candidates.

The Prediction Challenge allows students to submit prediction maps for the upcoming election. After Election Day, the class's prediction maps are compared to see whose prediction came closest to the actual results. 

• To submit a map for the Prediction Challenge, fill out a map as described above and click or touch the "Submit my Predictions" button. Each user may only submit one map, so make your choices carefully!
• A submission can be made up until 11:59 PM (UTC) Monday, November 2nd, 2020. No submissions can be made on Election Day (November 3rd, 2020).
• After the election results have been determined a new button will appear on the sidebar labeled Prediction Challenge. Click this button to compare your submitted prediction map to the actual results and see where you rank among your classmates

The Run your Own Election feature allows schools to run their own, in-school elections. This feature can support elections where students run as candidates, as well as elections where candidates are non-students, such as actual Presidential candidates, special Friday lunches, or school mascots. To run an election, a teacher must act as an administrator to set up the parameters of the election and approve student submissions.

Creating a New Election

To start, a new election must be created from a teacher's Election Edge account. Any student accounts that you wish to participate in this election must be tied to this teacher's account using the teacher code.

To set up a new election, log into your Election Edge account, and click the "Run Your Own Election" button. Ensure that "Create New Election" is highlighted in the left-hand sidebar, and fill out the following information:

• Election Name - A name for the election so you can find it later. All student accounts that have been linked with this teacher account will be able to see this name.
• Voting Period, Begin and End Dates - The dates in this range will be your "Election Day". No votes can be cast outside of this date range. Prior to the start date, new candidates can be added to the election and candidate info can be updated. Beyond the end date, the results of the election will be shown.
• Auto-Publish Results - If this is selected, the results of the election will be published as soon as the voting period has ended. Otherwise, teachers will be able to view the results and choose if/when to publish them.
• Show Detailed Results - If this is selected, the election results will display the percentage of votes each candidate received. Otherwise, only the winner of the election will be displayed.
• Students will be Candidates - Choose this option if the candidates will be actual students in your school. This will enable student accounts to declare their candidacy. Otherwise, the teacher will create the candidates.
• Require Teacher Approval - This option is only available if "Students will be Candidates" has been checked. If this is selected, any changes made to candidate bios will be sent to you for approval before being posted in the application. Otherwise, changes will be visible as soon as the student submits them.

Creating Candidates

If you’re running an election that does not feature student candidates, the teacher who creates the election will also create the candidates during the election setup process. If the "Students Will Be Candidates" button is unchecked, an "Add Candidates" section will appear, allowing the teacher to input all the candidate information. New candidates can be added or edited up until the voting period begins. To add a new candidate or edit an existing one, enter the election, and click the "Candidates" tab.

Viewing Active Elections

Teachers can check-in on active elections and, depending on what phase they're in, change some of the settings. In the left-hand sidebar, click "Active Elections" to view a list of any elections you created that have not yet reached the end of the voting phase. Then click "View/Edit" next to the election you'd like to edit. From here you can change the dates of the Voting Period or change the various Results and Candidates options. Make sure to click the "Apply All Changes" button to save any changes you make.

From this same screen, you can also view the list of candidates who have declared for this election, as well as a list of students who have already cast their vote.

Notifications

As students declare their candidacy or make edits to their candidate bios and slogans, teachers will get notified that these changes are pending their approval before being published to the rest of the students (assuming the "Require Teacher Approval" setting was checked). When a teacher has at least one new notification, a number in a red circle will appear next to "Notifications" in the left-hand sidebar. Clicking here will open a list of all pending changes that need teacher approval. Anything you approve will appear for everyone immediately. Anything you reject will not be posted to the application.

Q: What happened to Voters Ed?

Voters Ed has become Election Edge! All the same features you love from Voters Ed are here and ready to use, with much more on the way!
Stay tuned.

Q: Will this work on Macs? What about Chromebooks?

Yes! Election Edge supports both Safari and Chrome browsers on MacOS and will run in the Chrome browser on your favorite Chromebook.

Q: I’m trying to set up a mock election using the Run Your Own Election feature. None of my students can see the election I’ve set up. What gives?

To use this feature, the election must be set up from a Teacher/Parent/Admin account first, and the student voters must each have their own Election Edge accounts that have been linked to that Teacher account as described above.  They will then be able to see and participate in the election.