I Voted
Today, I voted. I’m in the middle of a house move, I have a cold, I’ve not been sleeping well and I had a website to finish building that needed to be done before I lose internet access for a week or two, and I’m knackered. But still, I voted.
Registering to get my vote was actually more of a fuss than the act of voting itself. I awoke one morning a few weeks ago, reading the BBC news website as I dripped from the shower, and discovered that the deadline for registering to vote was, er, in nine hours time. Well, thanks! One frantic Google later, followed by a quick print job and a run into town, and I was registered. I’d have been really annoyed if I’d missed it, because this election is one I feel quite strongly about.
I wanted to vote. Irrespective of the outcome, irrespective of whether my chosen party (the Liberal Democrats, naturally) had a chance of winning. I wasn’t looking at this as an opportunity to change government because our electoral system doesn’t work like that. I was looking at this simply as an opportunity to say to the government “I disagree with what you do, with what you stand for, with how you behave and with what you say. Here are the people I believe in. That’s all.”
The Liberal Democrats will not be forming a new government tomorrow morning, but that’s not why I voted for them. I know they can’t win. I know that by voting Liberal, there’s a chance that the tories will win when the anti-tory vote is split. I recognise the risk and I accept that risk because I refuse to play the game. I refuse to tactically vote, to vote for someone that I fundamentally disagree with. I will not support the lesser of two evils. If the electoral system does not register my vote, if my vote does not matter then that’s a shame, and I wish that it wasn’t the case.
My vote matters to me.