Only one week left to register your vote in the general election
Are you registered to vote? There are only seven days left to register if you want to vote on May 6th in what is becoming the most fiercely contested general election for decades.
Tuesday 20th April is the cut off date when anyone who has not registered will be effectively disenfranchised and will play not part in determining who will govern the UK for the next five years.
There has been plenty of advertising encouraging people to register, but nothing like the celebrity-led escapades in America. The photograph above shows a surprisingly mute Christina Aguilera in part of a campaign in the states that also included Jessica Alba. In the run up to the election of Barack Obama as that country’s president it seemed as if there was scarcely a single celebrity who wasn’t encouraging people to register. Of course this is in a country where overt and covert efforts are made to deliberately disenfranchise key voting demographics.
The Electoral Commission in the UK has set up a website where you can register online to vote and with so many of our readers in Newbury, there is also information on the West Berkshire Council website.
There is another very real danger that registered voters will feel fatigued with the back biting of the major parties on top of disillusionment that the expenses scandal created. With so much at stake it, the only wasted vote will be the ones not cast.
So, and this is thoroughly un-British, ask your family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, clients, suppliers – anyone and everyone you meet this week two questions. Firstly, are they registered to vote? Secondly, are they going to vote?