Free and Fair elections

Thursday, 3 May London had it's mayoral election .... and if you didn't know if Boris Johnson was re-elected.

Sunday, 6 May France had their general elections .... and if you didn't know, Francois Hollande beat Nicolas Sarkozy by 52% to 48 %

Sunday, 6 May Greece also held general elections ... and if you didn't know Greece's conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK parties failed to get a majority vote.

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In Belgium all companies with 50 or more employees are obliged to hold social elections every four years.

Tuesday, 8 May ... we had our social elections at work.

Not only are the companies obliged to hold elections but as employee you are obliged to vote. Honestly what is democratic about it if you force people to vote?

It's bad enough that you are forced to take part in the countries general elections now we are forced to take part at work as well!

Anyway, my colleague Kristina & I took our election letters down to the board room where we had to hand it our letters and show our work (photo id) badges to ensure that we were who we said we were (I didn't have to, someone working at the polling station vouched for me). We were given 2 ballots and showed to the little voting booths, complete with a curtain where we could cast our votes.

Once you made your choice you had to verify that you were putting valid ballots in the box by showing the polling station workers the back of the ballot where a date stamp was to proof validity. And in the box your ballots went.

Voting done!

I have no idea who I voted for, I just ticked 2 random boxes. I understand that unions are important and that without them our working conditions would not be what they are but they make such a fuss over stupid things most of the time that I just couldn't be bothered.

Vote for your friends ... might come in handy :)