Sir, – I have just been reading an account of a parliamentary election in Carrickfergus in 1807 where 20 men went to the polls as only men with sufficient property were entitled to vote. A hundred years ago women went to prison to get the vote. I was saddened to hear on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme person after person in Northern Ireland saying they would not vote as they did not want to vote orange or green.
There are alternatives to orange and green. If all the non-voters did come out to vote we could change our politics. The extreme parties get their voters out and dominate our politics and it is the non-voters who allow that to happen. – Yours, etc,
MARGARET MARSHALL,
Belfast.