It’s SUPER THURSDAY! There are elections today for the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly of Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly, for 124 councils in England and the London Mayor. If you are in an area that is voting, here are six reasons to get out there and exercise your hard-won democratic right.
1. It’s a beautiful sunny day!
Source: Met Office
This is the *actual weather*. Today. It’s beautiful and sunny across most of the UK. What are the odds? Somebody is telling you to vote.
2. You don’t need a polling card
Image Credit: www.CGPGrey.com[/caption]
It’s true! And it’s right here on the government website about voting. “You can still vote if you’ve lost your card”.
You just need to be on the Voting Register. So don’t worry too much if it has fallen behind the sofa/cabinet/you accidentally buried it in under your new shed.
3. If you don’t vote then that person you didn’t want to get in will get in
He’s not standing. But you get the idea.
Seriously, no exaggeration. Your vote is going to be the deciding vote and that really awful candidate you saw on the news is going to be ruling over you from tomorrow if you don’t get off the sofa RIGHT NOW.
4. Because it’s your fundamental human right
Image Credit: Philip Halling / Geograph
The right to free and fair elections is protected by Article 3 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. Our plain-English infographic explaining everything.
5. Because people fought for the right to vote over centuries and we should thank them by getting off the couch right now
Women only got the vote in the UK in 1932 – less than a hundred years ago. See our human rights 101 timeline.
Think that’s bad? Women were given the vote in Switzerland in 1971, and Liechtenstein in 1984. Let’s honour them by getting out there and voting.
6. Because democracy
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, in 2015, 91.1% of people in the world don’t live in ‘full democracies’.
We in the UK are lucky enough to be in the 8.9% who do. The great thing about democracy is that we get to boot out our leaders every few years by ticking a little box on a piece of card and then putting it in a bigger box. Let’s go and boot out some leaders.
For more on how to vote today, see:
Go on. Do it.
