IN the past week or so polling cards have been dropping through voters’ letterboxes as the Scottish Parliamentary election looms ever closer.

This election is far too important to leave to other people. Everyone in Scotland – but young people and women in particular – need to register to vote and make their voices heard in our national election in May. Politics isn’t some abstract thing that you have to be a politician to understand. Politics affects every aspect of your life, the bills you pay, your wages, your house, your education, your job.

It is also far too important to be left just to the politicians – I know that more than most since I’ve seen first-hand at Westminster what some of them can be like. For too many their naked self-interest is more important than the lives of their constituents. They regard elections as an annoyance getting in the way of their grandiose plans to improve their own lifestyle.

That’s why it’s important that everyone eligible takes up their right to vote.

It used to be said that if you didn’t receive your polling card you shouldn’t worry about it – you don’t actually need it to vote. However, due to changes in the process of registering to vote, rushed in by the Tories, that is no longer the case.

Traditionally one person per household registered all eligible occupants. The Tories argued that change was necessary due to changing social attitudes and cases of electoral fraud. The new system of Individual Electoral Registration means if you want a vote, you have to make sure that you are on the electoral register – no one else can do it for you.

The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) warned that poorer and disadvantaged groups were the most likely to be disenfranchised due to the Tory Government’s push to bring voter registration changes into effect a year ahead of schedule. This change was pushed through despite the ERS warning of the potential impact of many potential voters losing out.

Figures published by the Scottish Government revealed that the Scots electoral roll for Westminster elections lost 139,000 voters in 2015. The figures come amid warnings from the ERS that voter registration has fallen by 600,000 across the UK in the last year. Voter losses were higher in Scotland at 3.4 per cent than England (2.0 per cent) and Wales (3.1 per cent).

According to the ERS the constituencies which saw the biggest drop are largely student seats and deprived areas – groups which are already under-represented. The areas with the biggest rise are largely wealthier areas. The ERS also claim that this patchy picture means electoral registration – and the number of parliamentary seats representing each area – is getting more unequal by the year. They fear that we could end up with a democratic system based on a registration postcode lottery. And whatever the size of the fall, this evidence of growing social and age divides in our democracy could be hugely damaging if it carries on in the long-run.

If this trend continues we will lose the progress that we have made in the past 100 years or so when women and young people would have been unable to vote. We will go back to only the richer, more affluent and older parts of our population being able to vote.

Yet compare this to the referendum campaign when Scotland enjoyed unprecedented mass voter registration. Around 97 per cent of Scots were registered to cast their vote on September 18, 2014.

Irrespective of the disappointing result, one of the great successes of the independence referendum was the level of engagement and voter participation that swept across every community in the weeks and months before September 18th 2014.

The increased level of political awareness was also felt in the Westminster election last year, at least in Scotland where we had the historic SNP victory. In the year when we should have been celebrating Scotland’s independence, we can’t afford to allow Tory fiddling of electoral registration to limit our right to vote.

This year’s Scottish Parliament vote is the first election in which 16 and 17-year-olds will get to have their say and more women than ever are getting involved in the political process.

May’s election is about how we keep Scotland moving forward, boost our economy and protect and improve the public services we all rely on – and it’s vitally important that everyone’s voice is heard as Scotland’s national debate takes place over the coming weeks. The progress we have made in this time is astonishing – and we simply can’t afford to take it for granted.

It is vitally important that we aim to retain this level of voter participation – it’s extremely worrying that the changes brought in by the UK Government have seen levels of registration drop so significantly. Everyone has to take it upon themselves to check if they are on their local electoral register. You can’t rely on someone else to make sure you will have the right to vote.

An example of this was in my local area (Renfrewshire), where until this week the local electoral registration board’s website was still saying that you had to be 18 years or older to vote!

With all the publicity of 16 and 17-year-olds attaining the right to vote in the Scottish Parliamentary election, somehow this hadn’t reached the website of the body responsible for maintaining the local electoral register!

As I have the privilege of leading the SNP campaign to engage with younger voters in this election, you don’t have to guess how I would like people to vote. It’s also no surprise that I want to encourage younger people to get involved, get active but most importantly of all, make sure you are on the electoral register.

Nobody should find themselves turned away at a polling station this May – and with the Scottish Parliamentary election fast approaching as well as the deadline of April 18 for registering to vote, there has never been a more important time to make sure that you are on your local electoral register.

If you haven’t received your polling card, then check with your local electoral registration office to make sure you are on the electoral register.

Don’t lose the right to have your voice heard at the ballot box.

You can register to vote here: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote