Privilege

"Nana, when are you going to go vote?" The Most Adorable Granddaughter in the World#1 asked me a short while ago.

"Are your uncles ready to go vote?" I asked in reply. (DH - wise man - had voted earlier in the week and so could continue with his tiling of the laundry floor.)

"I'll go see," she said.

They were. So we went. And The Most Adorable Granddaughters#1 & #2 came home with stickers claiming they had voted!

I'll admit that I'm not sure why The Most Adorable Granddaughter#1 was keen for us to go vote (surely nothing to do with the playground at the school?) but I certainly didn't want her to get the idea that voting was irksome - even if I had to put aside my sewing so that we could go.

At the voting booth she seemed a little in awe of all that was happening. I remember as a child waiting outside in the car while my parents voted and conjuring up various scenarios of what 'voting' looked like (all of which turned out to be far more exciting than the reality which I later discovered when I turned eighteen).

To vote for one's government is a privilege and something denied many people in this world. It may not be top of my list of things I like to do but it is a privilege all the same. New Zealand was the first nation to grant women the right to vote in 1893 although other nations did permit professional women or land-owning women to vote in local elections. Women in Australia in 1865 were also able to vote due to an error in Victoria's laws - which were quickly amended!

I will admit that as a woman I understand zilch about politics ... but that won't stop me watching with interest the outcome of today's elections.

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