HEADING out to vote in elections today but don’t know if you have everything you need? Consult this handy election guide.
A pulse
To vote in elections in Britain the only real qualification you need is not being dead. To make sure you are fully competent to participate in democracy, gently apply pressure to your wrist with your index and middle finger. If you can feel a faint pulse with at least 18 years of experience of wearily pumping blood through your body, congratulations, you can cast your essentially irrelevant vote.
Your ill-informed opinions
It’s important you don’t leave your unfounded hunches at home with your photo ID. The last thing you want is to be standing in the polling booth with a strong grasp of local issues and parties’ policies. This will cause you to dither, so with lots of people waiting it’s best if you let your half-baked suspicions about immigrants or Zack Polanski tell you what to do. Making an ill-informed knee-jerk decision is fine, it’s only vital services in vast swathes of the country at stake. No biggie.
Clothes
On a practical note, make sure you own at least one set of clothes and put them on before stepping outside to vote. Sadly it’s one of the many gatekeeping hurdles the nanny state has imposed. If the cost of living crisis means you can’t afford clothes, fashion rudimentary garments from leaves and bits of cardboard. Perhaps do this anyway – the volunteers at the polling station will probably rush you through quickly, avoiding any boring queuing.
Deep loathing of one party in particular
Under no circumstances read each candidate’s manifesto and carefully form your own opinion on who is best suited for power, or at least organising wheelie bin collections. Votes are traditionally cast in opposition to the party that you despise, with Reform UK and the Greens being the popular choices in this election. Who cares if you don’t particularly agree with what they stand for; do the right thing and allow yourself to be guided by blind hate.
Dog treats
Exercising your hard-won right to vote is a sideshow to the main event of election day: taking photos of cute dogs outside polling stations. It’s unfair to expect the canine guardians of democracy to pose for free though, so be sure to sling a couple of bone-shaped biscuits their way. Once that vital duty is completed, you can cursorily vote for some bellend who’ll probably get booted off the council in a month for watching porn in meetings.
