"If voting changed anything they'd abolish it" Ken Livingstone, now Mayor of London, once said. Another wag implored: "Don't vote. It only encourages them."

The truth is we have a modicum of democracy and most of us take it for granted. Many don't even bother to vote in council elections once every four years.

But a healthy proportion does -- tens of thousands in Brighton and Hove and well into six figures across our county.

For most of us politics is a turn-off. The process can be unclear and hard to understand. And even when we make our voices heard, too often they are ignored.

So why bother to vote?

The simple answer is that over the next four years hundreds of important decisions will be taken that will affect our lives. Few of us would want to have to make all those decisions unless they had an immediate impact on our lives.

Those issues may be about whether to give permission for a big building project, which schools our children attend, what we do with our waste or who owns what is currently council housing. The letters pages of The Argus are evidence of how passionately many of you can and do care.

So it is vital we take our chance to pick people we trust to make such important decisions on our behalf. Vote with care.