By Rebecca McGirr
WITH polling stations across the country set to open its doors from 7:00am tomorrow morning The Fermanagh Herald decided to speak with a group of young students from Erne Integrated College in Enniskillen who have just turned 18 and are now entitled to vote.
More than 30,000 people who were too young to vote in the last election in Northern Ireland have registered for this assembly election.
From the group of five students sampled at the school two said they would be voting, one was undecided and two others said they would not be voting. Students were also asked what issues were important to them and if they thought that it was important to vote.
“I am going to be voting but my parents have most of the say of who I will be voting for and they have met some of the party members and the only one that sparked any of their interest was the Green Party, but I don’t have any interest in anyone myself. I do think it is important to vote but when there is not anyone that I really want to vote for it is kind of hard,” said Fred Mason.
Another student Kaitlyn Rodgers, said she would be voting. “The issues that would be important to me would mainly be education and the issues affecting the health service particularly waiting lists,” she said.
“I do think it is important to vote to make sure everything is moving towards the right direction and there is a change made when there needs to be.”
John Armstrong said he was undecided who to vote for. “Its up in the air, I’m not fully sure yet who to vote for, probably someone that will support farming and agricultural issues because I come from a farming background.”
“I think its important to vote because everyone has to have their say in who is running your country.”
One of the two students who said they would not voting said he was not voting because he was unsure of who to vote for.
The second student said, “I am not going to be voting this election but I do think it is important to vote because I see that they are potentially going to be stopping emergency surgery in the hospital so that would be an important issue.”
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