Are you going to vote or spoil your paper?

[onewheeldave]

A spoiled slip is probably just binned by an uncaring ballot worker. They dont know who you are and your statement is wasted. It's not spoiled slips that count but the percentage of voter turnout.

In my neck of the woods a 50 percent turnout in local elections is considered quite satisfactroy

 

No.

 

from- http://www.blankvote.org.uk/blank_votes_count.html

 

All votes, including blank and spoiled votes, are counted and announced in the results for each constituency on election night.

[Green Web]

IMO there ought to be None Of the Above option, and if NOTA wins then another election is called and none of the original candidates can stand again.

[anywebsite]

Yes. I think it should force a re-election if 'none of the above' wins.

 

It's OK being a protest voter, but what if all the candidates are equally bad? My choice was between Green, UKIP, Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, I didn't like any of the candidates, I'd have voted 'none of the above', if I could. It'd mean politicians had to put some effort in to win our votes, rather than just not be as bad as the others.

 

Spoiling your paper is really no different to not turning up. Probably worse overall, as they still add to the turnout figures & help to make the election look legitimate.

[Green Web]

Anyone can go around acting like some sort of anarchistic cupcake but no political party in creation can live up to everyone's ideals. It makes more sense to support the party that opposes the party you most hate. Not voting only gives an extra vote to the hated party

 

It's nothing to do with been anarchistic, the issue boils down to trust, if they fail to engage the electorate then this the fault of our MP's and concillors, not the general public.

[Hairyloon]

IMO there ought to be None Of the Above option, and if NOTA wins then another election is called and none of the original candidates can stand again.

 

I'm not so sure about that: what if you have a good candidate in a carp party who has the good sense to ditch the party?

Should they be allowed to stand?

[chem1st]

Yes. I think it should force a re-election if 'none of the above' wins.

 

Would be brilliant for the poll clerks and presiding officers, especially council employees who get special leave for elections!

[onewheeldave]

I have NOT voted at all.

 

I feel really let down by the Lib Dems but could not get myself to vote for anyone else, I wish I had seen this topic before 10pm and I could have then put in a blank vote slip. This is the first time I have heard that they are counted.

 

It is a let down. Unfortunately, as I expect you probably now know, alternative parties who seem to be standing for principles different to the main parties, if they actually get into power, quickly become exactly the same.

 

I also did not know that blank slips are counted- luckily I stumbled across this thread and followed this link-

 

http://www.blankvote.org.uk/blank_votes_count.html

 

in good enough time to go to the polling station and submit my (blank) vote.

 

I'd suggest you bear it in mind for the next election, and, inform as many other people as you can- it would be good if a substantial portion of the non-voting public turned up and put in blank slips at the next election.

[Green Web]

I'm not so sure about that: what if you have a good candidate in a carp party who has the good sense to ditch the party?

Should they be allowed to stand?

 

Well a good candidate should have the sense not to stand for a crap party in the first place.

[esme]

Spoiled ballots are counted and in general viewed as "none of the above" not "can't put a cross in a box". They don't affect the outcome though, so if everyone bar 1 person spoiled their ballot whoever that person voted for would be elected. We don't have minimum attendance/percentage etc rules in the UK. First past the post means exactly that.

We had this discussion in 2009 and people insisted that spoiled papers were counted as a protest when they weren't, it got to the point where I asked the electoral commission about it and got the following response

Thank you for your email to the Electoral Commission.

 

The number of spoilt ballots (technically known as rejected ballot

papers) is recorded, but that it's impossible to tell what proportion of that number is intentionally spoilt by voters. The Returning Officer records the reason for a vote being rejected, and can then supply figures for each of the following categories. Rejected for:

 

A) Want of official mark (not the unique identifying mark)

B) Voting for more candidates than there are vacancies to be filled

C) Writing or mark by which the voter could be identified

D) those where the voter's intention is uncertain

E) Any paper with something unusual about it (for example it has been altered, torn or mutilated)

 

The number of spoilt ballot papers is difficult to record as a protest because there's no certain way of knowing whether a ballot was spoiled intentionally, or of recording it.

 

The Commission requires Returning Officers to supply figures for how many ballot papers were rejected for each of the reasons above and The Commission publishes the number of rejected ballot papers in spreadsheets of electoral data, which are on our website.

 

If there was a dramatic rise in the number of spoilt ballot forms at an election this would probably be investigated. Spoilt ballot papers, along with all the ballot papers, are kept for a year after the election in case they need to be looked at again. However as things stand the number of spoilt ballot forms is not seen as a protest because it is not clear how many of them are a deliberate protest and how many are spoiled unintentionally.

 

Please let me know if you require any further information.

 

Kind regards,

 

Esther Mckelvie

Public Information Officer

The Electoral Commission

Trevelyan House

Great Peter Street

London SW1P 2HW

So in 2009 spoiled ballot papers weren't counted as any kind of protest or as a "None of the Above" option, they were just counted as spoiled and then ignored.

 

Now the rules may have changed since then, but I doubt it, feel free to ask them yourself, the contact web page is http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/contact and there's a link for contact emails and addresses

[anywebsite]

Look at this-

 

http://www.blankvote.org.uk/blank_votes_count.html

 

 

 

By voting blank you can show your total lack of faith for the current candidates of all parties, have your opinion logged, and, can not be accused of 'apathy' (as you have made the effort to submit a voting slip).

 

Imagine if the 10's of thousands of people who normally don't vote (often because they consider all available candidates to be crooks/useless/as bad as each other) went along and submitted a blank slip, which has to be counted and announced.

 

If British political elections consistently had, say 30% of the electorate submitting blank slips, and, that had to be announced to the world, I'd say that a huge incentive for politicians to acknowledge that the current system is failing badly.

 

Up to now, they just fob it off with acusations of 'voter apathy/laziness'- that would no longer be an option with people putting in blank slips.

 

By voting blank you're adding to the turnout figures without actually voting. You're making the election look more legitimate than it is. It's less of a protest than not voting.

 

A 20% turnout looks worse than a 40% turnout with half of the papers spoiled, they hardly ever mention how many are spoiled, unless you're watching the result live you'd never know. Turnout figures are more widely announced.

 

A 'none of the above' option would be better, but failing that why turn up to vote & then not bother? It's just a waste of time, might as well stay at home. Black votes might be counted, but the figure is never used for anything, it's meaningless & it's implied that those were people too stupid to find a box to mark with an 'x'.

 

I was tempted to write in 'None of the above', I think I've done that before, but it's even more of a waste of time than actually voting.