Voting in the UK

This past week, I voted in my first UK election. Despite not being a UK citizen (like my beautiful wife), the rules of the UK Electoral Commission allow resident Commonwealth citizens to vote in UK elections. Similar rules would also allow me to vote in Scottish Parliamentary elections, as well as European Parliamentary elections, but not in elections of The City of Edinburgh Council (in which case I would need to be an EU National).

I was surprisingly excited to vote. In some sense, the election involved similar players and issues compared to Canada. Though I still feel like a bit of an outsider which, in some strange way, made it a little easier for me to make my voting decision. As the results indicate, more than 65% of eligible voters cast their vote (which is similar to Canadian participation levels from 2006, but more than those of 2008).

In our riding (Edinburgh West), we elected a Liberal Democrat (see local results), as has been the case since 1997 (though with three different representatives).