Make your voice count at the General Election!

Politics. Only one word, and already so many people will stop reading. Yet, we are only one week away from the general election.

44%. You think it is a low percentage? It is the number of 18 to 24 year old who voted in the last general election.

“I can’t relate to any of the politicians.”

“They rarely listen to young people”

“Politics are too hard to understand”

All of this is true, but it does not mean that we shouldn’t vote. I am not extremely interested in politics, and I find it pretty hard sometimes to understand what each political party stands for; but if you are in the same situation, do not give up just yet!

We are young, we have our entire future ahead of us and we are the ones who are going to grow up through the elected government. Just thinking of our future should motivate us to vote.

Still not convince to vote? Then I found the perfect website for you, Voting Counts (http://www.votingcounts.org.uk/), which is going to help you through the whole process of taking part in the election.

Rachael Farrington, 18 year old, set up this website in the hope to educate young people on this matter and help them understand the issues covered by the party. During an interview on channel 5, she said “Once people understand how politic affects them, they will become much more engage. I think it is important for young people to get involve, so that their percentage goes up and we get looked at more when politicians make policies.”

So here, for you, I have gathered some reasons why you should vote based on my views and Voting Counts:

*Young people, even if they don’t vote, still claim caring about their country; and that is one simple good reason. Voting gives you the power to have a say in what is happening in different aspects of the country’s life, even if you cast a blank vote, it shows that you care, but do not agree with any of the parties.

*The more young people vote, the more the Parliament is going to try and represent us. Change cannot achieve itself, we have to make a change, and if you want your interest represented in the Parliament, then you have to show politicians that you care and that you want to be noticed.

*If you think you cannot make a change, you are wrong. The number of non-voters outnumbered by far the number of supporters of each of the parties. If all of these people voted, the result of the election could have been completely different.

It all starts with one vote. Your vote.

After being convinced that voting is important, the second step is to understand what each political party stands for. Rachel Farrington realised that the political education in the UK is far from being perfect, as she explained on Channel 5, “At school we had a complete lack of political education, until we took it as an A-Level option, and there was only about 20 people in the Year who actually did that.” And that explains a lot on the reasons so many young people are completely lost when it comes to political parties and their ideas.

For that reason, she explained the different political parties on her website, and compared them on various issues. Here are some basic information to help you have a better understanding.

There are three main parties:

*Labour – “power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few” it is a democratic socialist party, which focuses on the strengths of a united society.

*Liberal Democrats - "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community”

*Conservatives – “The party stands for a free society and a strong nation state; we want to give people more opportunity and power over their lives, to make families stronger and society more responsible and to make Britain safer and greener."

And a few other minor parties:

*The Green Party - "We are committed to providing well-being and prosperity for everyone, in harmony with nature. "

*UKIP – “We are firmly opposed to political integration within Europe” this is their main focus, but have also other policies about taxes, the NHS and same-sex civil partnership.

*BNP – They have different policies

against immigration and same-sex marriage and for the reintroduction of the capital punishment.

*Respect Party – "We want a world in which the democratic demands of the people are carried out; a world based on need not profit; a world where solidarity rather than self-interest is the spirit of the age.”

To find out more information about the parties, and especially to compare the different parties, you can visit Voting Counts policy matrix: http://www.votingcounts.org.uk/policy-matrix.html

You can also visit this quiz, which is going to match your ideas with the party that represent them best: http://election2015.votematch.org/

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