Registering to Not Vote

In Australia, voting is compulsory. If you don't vote, you can be jailed. I rather liked that idea until I spoke to some Australians about the effects of having lots of unimformed voters entering the booth in a bad mood because they are being made to do something they don't want to.

Perhaps a better thing to do is strongly encourage people to register. And I mean strongly.

Holly and I received a letter from the electoral authority. It was more polite than the letter from the television licensing people, but nearly as insistent. The letter informed us that there was no record of our voting status, and that previous letters had gone unanswered. (We never saw these.) If we did not fill out the enclosed registration form, we would continue to get letters, and if we did not eventually respond to those, someone would come in person to interview us.

I dutifully filled in the form, registering us as people who are not allowed to vote in Britain.

Just as impressive as this drive to get everyone registered is the list of qualifications for voting. Commonwealth citizens who are resident in Britain, even though they are not really British, are eligible to vote. If Holly and I were resident here as citizens of Canada, Nigeria, India, Jamaica, or any of the 49 other sovereign states in the Commonwealth, the form that I returned would have registered us to vote here in the next election.

And Brits do vote. We saw mention in the newspaper last night of 75% voter participation. In U.S. elections, that would be a staggering turnout of registered voters, and a large percentage of Americans who could vote don't even register.

Odds and Ends

Meanwhile, I have continued to access the Internet by wandering my neighborhood looking for unencrypted wireless hubs. They are easy to find, but I usually find myself sitting on the sidewalk. Yesterday I finally signed on with the Queen's Park Wireless Club. Starbucks has no electrical outlets that are convenient to their customers. I can sit at Starbucks and surf until my battery runs out, then walk to the library to recharge, then go back to Starbucks, by which time I'll be ready to order another drink, anyway.

Not ideal, but if I'd had an Internet connection at home from our first day there, I'd have doubtless spent too much time in the flat and not enough getting to know the neighborhood.

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We accomplish everything on foot, including grocery shopping. We bought a flowery rolling cart that we have named Vickie, in honor of our Queen's Park neighborhood. (The park was named during Victoria's reign.) Orange, white, and yellow, she really does look like a Vickie.

Rolling Vickie home does make it relatively easy to bring home a large purchase of food, but it's still a long walk to grocery stores of any size, and I find all this trekking wears me down, especially now when we have so many needs --- a completely empty larder to stock. What's more, we don't really have a routine yet that allows Holly to pick up a few things on the way home or me to have a regular shopping plan. Here's to settling down soon with a phone line that actually works, a broadband connection, and something like a schedule.

Finally, about BT. Holly called again from her office today and reached a friendly agent who said he'd be pleased to help. Then he put her on hold for two minutes. Then the line went dead.