True, but I won't worry too much about it. The polling station opens at 7:30 in the morning so I can just have an extra cup of coffee at the bus stop then head over there.
While they have to let me off three hours, legally, practically it's an imposition on my fellow workers as we work 12-hour shifts and have nobody to cover. I'd already arranged to take the following day off for a singing engagement before they called the election, so asking for another three hours is just not nice.
My comment was more in the tone of "Of course if they're going to call an unneeded election not only the day itself but all the early days will be on my 4-day 'on' shift, not my 4 days off." Murphy's Law.