Oh fuck I forgot to vote

[Icedlatteplease]

Left home for work before 7am have s long commute and the car is messing up a previous back injury so came home exhausted and in pain.

I just completely and utterly forgot.

@ChairFloorWall

I live very near the polling station, I walk there, vote (easily) and walk home. The nearest post box is much further away and as I said, I like the process of 'going to vote' it feels much more significant than just shoving it in the post.

Contact your council's electoral office.

Maybe next week though as today they'll either still be running the count or recovering from pulling an all-nighter!

Thank you. I suspected as much but feel too deflated today to do it.

I think rather than people not getting to cast a vote because there is nobody they would vote for there should be a “none of the above” option

I wonder to what extent the new ID requirements have depressed the numbers of people voting.
A lot I would think. It's fucking shocking. And I don't buy that voter fraud was rife before we had to have id. I am really busy and also disorganised and my passport is out of date. A lot of people are disorganised, have no id, and are not going to get it together to sort out an id card. Being disorganised should not automatically remove your right to vote!
I also don't like that its inching closer to universal government id cards.

Passports don't have to be in date for voter ID purposes.

@redspottedmug I will let it drop. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the argument we have a morally obligation to engage in the political process which I think makes it an "oh fuck" moment for me.

But then I do kinda think the same as @midlifecrash Maybe those who are not inclined to vote are do those who have strongly held beliefs a political public service. If you don't have a strongly held political belief should you even have the responsibility for deciding who should rule.

I do sometimes think about a none of the above option. It certainly would make a legal regulation to vote more palatable. But to make it have any political difference to spoiling your vote, I think you would need to give it some political welly. Like if "none of the above" gains a majority, a new election is forced. But then do you risk the country being ungovernable? I'm not sure.

From what I can see some of the best and most subtle work at Westminster is done on a cross party basis through select committees. Problem is I would vote for my local candidate any day of the week, the party he belongs to less so. In the end you actually voting directly for your local mp, the party who govens only indirectly.

Same for the local councillors, you are actually voting for who you feel is best to run your local area. You aren't actually voting for a political party. Most people voting with the intention of the other way round (eg protesting at the current government)

So did I. I somehow didn't realise my ballot paper had arrived. And completely forgot about it.

That's it. I know there is a good reason but it still bugs me

Thanking all those who sharing their stories of also forgetting for making me feel better about it

I would say it’s still less faff as, generally, you’ll pass a post box when you’re doing something. Our tesco has one. And you get the postal vote a few weeks ahead of the actual voting day so can literally do it whenever. You also don’t need ID to postal vote 😜

If you like doing it in person that’s fair enough though.

Do you live in both their constituencies or something?

In any case it was a local election.

Yeah.

I wonder what the equalities assessment said about possibility of disenfranchising groups of people some of whose ability to remember to turn up on the right day, in the right place, with their ID are directly linked to protected characteristics.

having to check and figure out if you’ve got acceptable ID to vote is still likely to be a significant barrier for quite a lot of people.

especially for local elections where turnout is never that high. The intention should be to make it as easy as possible for people to vote - and to focus on encouraging engagement across the community. Making it harder for even people who usually would vote seems ridiculous.

There are all sorts of possible ways to reduce fraudulent voting. ID isn’t necessarily the best one.

Frankly, it’s ridiculous that in 2023, the only options remain someone (might be an officially designated proxy) turning up to your local church hall/school/community centre/portacabin in a car park/whatever to put an x on a bit of paper or a postal vote. If the government wanted to increase participation rates and be as inclusive as possible, there are lots of things they could look at.

After all, the government already run loads of digital and hybrid services in areas where fraud is very much a possibility and have measures in place to monitor and mitigate that.

I forgot until the labour candidate knocked on the door asking if I'd voted

I forgot once because we were on holiday abroad. Also the seat went conservative having previously been labour. Needless to say I now do a postal vote! Although I tend to forget to post it and end up handing it in on polling day in person negating the point of a postal vote entirely

Well well. My local borough council (Tory stronghold) is now overwhelmingly Labour.

However, whilst labour have more than half the seats, if you look at actual voting figures, the % votes for Tory is still overwhelming.

Just over 50% of seats have gone to labour with only 32% of labour votes, whilst 45% of votes for Tory got them less than 25% of the seats on the borough council.

We so desperately need proportional representation.

For those of you who have responded to my post re women's sufferage...
Yes, having the right to vote means you do not have to vote. I undertand that. Yet women on this forum are moaning their arses off about 'the patriarchy', and how our voices are silenced; voting and getting a female voice heard can make a difference so why not do it?
Women and men fought hard for the vote; but if you can't be bothered to vote, then don't keep moaning about your lot in life
And yes, I would say the same to a bloke who did not nother to vote
And if you can't find a candidate to vote for, why not stop moaning and put yourself forward for election. No doubt you are clever enough to do a grand job

What's the voting for? I saw a polling station earlier on my drive and wondered what was going on.

I was one of those and see your point. I don't moan but I am disillusioned. Years ago my gran used to say "they've all got their noses in the trough" and it doesn't seem like much has changed.

The day I see a politician that I believe and can put my valuable vote behind is the day I will vote. I don't trust any of them and will just accept the outcome and think no one else would do much better.

I haven't gone out of my way to rearrange my day to attend a polling station just to spoil my ballot, but reading the responses here about that I might consider it in future.

My polling station is literally two doors down the street...

I do vote count/opening and we just put spoilt ballots in a pile, the electoral officer checks they aren’t valid, counts them. No one reads them, or shows them to anyone.

Thanks for responding @PsychoHotSauce
I absolutely agree with your gran that in most local councils, the councillors do have their noses in the trough. My council, Enfield is resolutely refusing to listen to the people their idiotic schemes are affecting; their arrogance is astounding!
But even if I vote for the most obscure independent candidate, who is v unlikely to get a seat, at least I am voting and in effect, registering hor pissed off I am with them (ok, yes, they don't see my individual vote, but...)
It's a difficult one, but maybe I am old-fashioned!

I hope you're feeling a bit better now. Unless you're in a very marginal ward it probably made no difference anyway :)

I didn't get to vote in the Brexit vote... I was in hospital with suspected meningitis and was actually so ill I didn't realise I'd missed it until a Greek doctor turned up the next morning and said "so you don't want us any more?... Actually it was 2 days later I just thought it was the next morning. Still cross about not voting though!

I was reluctant to vote because there was only a choice of two parties and the sitting council had a majority and have made a dog's dinner of it.

I couldn't not vote, so off I went to the polling station. Got there, queued, only to be told I needed to go to a different polling station. Walked there. Long queue. Some people were redirected to other polling stations or told to come back with ID.

Voted. Walked home.

Glad I voted. The sitting council lost it's majority.