Doing my bit for democracy, do you do yours???

A few years ago I got myself added to the list for election staff. I work as a poll clerk, one of those folk who sit there taking your name making marks on lists and then giving you that special piece of paper for whatever election it is that is taking place.

A couple of weeks ago I was working in a local council by election for a village district councillor. There were five stations in open, I was stationed in a village hall in the ward working with one other person. The village had approx 300 eligible voters in it and about 30 of them were postal votes.

So how many people do you think voted out of 270 for a local council councillor? We had just over 50 people come in and vote, that's about 20 percent, not many is it, the final result for the election was a 30 percent vote helped by a large return of postal votes.

Where is he going with this boring nonsense you might ask. The station I have worked in twice now has as I have said about 270 people eligible to vote so we should get about 20 an hour in, not the 3 an hour we had.

We have two more elections coming up in this country; the first will be for a police and crime commissioner in May, then its quite possible we will have a referendum on Europe later on and who knows other polling areas might have local council elections as well over the summer.

I remember vividly the first police commissioner election, there were three of us in a polling station west of Cambridge and we got about a 5 percent turnout, I think we all read lots of books, talked and tried not to fall asleep. I am hoping that this time round more people will vote after all the commissioner does hold a large budget of public money.

But the most important vote coming up is of course the Europe referendum whenever it takes place. Given how important this will be for the country I am hoping that everyone will vote who can, but I wont hold my breath mind we did get a 70 percent turnout in the general election so who knows.

Perhaps voting should be compulsory whether in person at a station or by post for all elections, after all if you dont vote you cant complain about the result can you.