Polling & Politics

So I did Polling on Thursday for the Local Elections. This is a very long 16 hour shift sitting in your designated Polling Station making sure the people’s voting day all goes smoothly. And I cannot even give you a figure for the amount of older ladies who came in to vote & stated that they think people in this country should be forced to vote & how they think it is a shame that not enough youngsters vote.

These ladies are right. Statistics (and my very own eyes) support that it is the older generation that makes a point of voting. It seems voting is something that, when this older generation were younger, was pushed onto them more by their parents or schools or society- I don’t know.

But I have to disagree with these older ladies & offer you with an alternative…you see if a youngster were forced to vote, would they submit their vote based on hours of research into the different parties history & promises on how they would improve the country? Or would they simply pick a name at random so they don’t get fined or whatever the penalty would be for not voting?

My guessing is it would be the latter. I don’t vote & my reason for not voting is that I don’t know enough about the political parties to be a part in who could possible come into power. I have always thought that it would be irresponsible of me to potentially affect the outcome just because ‘I should vote’ based on me having the opportunity to.

Don’t get me wrong I know a bit about what has been happening with the country, it’s pretty difficult to not have noticed ‘the recession’ & discussions on TV about who is to blame for it all. But I still haven’t made up my mind, so I’m doing what I feel is best & letting (hopefully) people who do have more of an idea influence the outcome.

My idea? Introduce a few classes in schools on politics (maybe swap some of the religious studies (just a few) for some politics), nothing too heavy, just show the importance of being aware of what the government does.

Give kids a bit more of an insight into the subject & maybe once this has happened & these generations come to an age where they can vote- they then will.

Lets end this on a light note…pictures of me in my work attire J lol