People died to give us the franchise

I always vote, whatever the level of the election. We have local council elections in my area this coming Thursday and I’ll be voting. Not sure who for, yet.

Voting is a hard-won privilege. In the UK, the Reform Act of 1832 passed after hard-fought campaigns to allow the growing middle class the vote. Not everyone was in favour, of course. The fear that the working class might have a say in the make-up of parliament was primary. The Duke of Wellington said that he couldn’t envisage a better system. This was a system where Leeds, a city of 130,000 people, shared two MPs with the whole of Yorkshire, and Old Sarum (population: 0) also returned two MPs. Notable among these MPs was William Pitt, the elder, Prime Minister from 1766-68.

Non-property owning men gained the vote, provided they paid a rent of over £50 a year (about £5000 today).

Women won the vote in 1918, but then only to women over 30. Male voting age was 21 at the time. The property-owning stipulation was lifted for men in 1918, but not for women, though. They still had a property-related restriction until 1928.

Across the Atlantic, voting privileges in the USA seem to be under attack. It’s already very difficult to vote in The States – every time there’s an election we see footage of enormous queues of people wanting to vote. Who knows how many are disenfranchised because they cannot spare two hours waiting to vote? The logical alternative – postal voting is also under attack.

Voting is a ‘use it or lose it’ privilege. I’ll be using it on Thursday.