Expats, are you voting?

I have to vote. I do. My grandmother impressed it on me. "When I was your age, I couldn't vote because I was a woman" she told me. "You must always vote. Always. It's your moral duty." So I do. I always vote. I vote because of the generations of women before me who were not able to. I vote because women fought, and were imprisoned, and force fed, so that I could. I vote because my grandmother couldn't until she was 29.

It's not difficult, as an expat. Don't use that as an excuse. You have to register, and then either choose a postal vote (unlikely to be workable unless you live in Europe, and even then, a little risky), or nominate someone to vote for you by proxy. You can print out the forms here. You'll need to be quick, as the forms have to be at the electoral registration office by April 20th, but you've got the time to achieve that if you want. The forms aren't difficult or time-consuming. The only part of the process that is likely to be an inconvenience is having to find another UK passport holder to witness your signature (can't trust any foreign johnnie to do that). I've got a bit stuck on finding a proxy, but I'm persevering. I couldn't look Emmeline Pankhurst or my grandmother in the face if I didn't. "Too much of a nuisance to keep on emailing" wouldn't impress them as an excuse.

Who to vote for is the next question. Brown, Cameron, or Clegg? I usually choose the one with the prettiest wife, because I always feel that says a lot about a man.

What about you? Are you living abroad but still going to vote? Or do you feel that if you're not in the country, you shouldn't have a say in its elections?

(And yes, I was joking about the wives thing...)

Post script

I realise on re-reading this post that it sounds as if my grandmother was a sufragette. She wasn't. Not as far as I know, anyway. But having been unable to vote as a young woman, she was very aware of the need to pass on what that had felt like to me.

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