Pink vote refers to the voting rights of gays and lesbians. So, every vote that a gay or lesbian can cast is referred to as the pink vote. Most prevalent in Britain, the concept has already spread to US and Canada with many other countries like South Africa and Australia starting to acknowledge it. In addition, there are socio-political movements and political goups formed by LGBT people who are linked to political parties.
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United Kingdom
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 1.00% of the total population in UK is homosexual and so, 480,000 people consider themselves gay or lesbian.
Political parties in Britain now aim at the pink vote bank and leave no stone unturned to persuade the homosexual community to vote in their favour.
The significance of pink vote has increased considerably with the changing times. Charles Kennedy of The Liberal Democrats pitched for the "pink vote" and even promised a package of ways to boost homosexual rights. Even the PM and the Conservative leader took desperate measures to win over the UK's three million pink voters.
United States
According to the research report by Gallup, Americans interviewed estimated the gay population to be around one in every fifth person in the US which would account for almost 20% of the overall population, while actual numbers are estimated to be 10% or less. This percentage does play a big role in the elections and political parties try every way to attract these pink voters. LGBT Democrats (linked to the Democratic Party) and Log Cabin Republicans (linked to the Republican Party) are two of the largest American political groups advocated to LGBT rights issues in politics.
Changing times
With the visible impact of the pink vote in Britain, Canada’s political scenario also caught up with the pink vote politics. This new idea has also been a topic of debate in the Australia's political system.
There are countries like South Africa where the pink vote is yet to acquire such importance and the homosexual community is yet to be given any added importance in elections.
In focus
There have also been debates about the impact of pink votes and their existence in politics. In spite of such debates, fever of the pink vote even caught up Oscars as well.