Local elections how to spoil ballot?

Again, though we're back to you feeling your views on this matter are more important than whether or not services that vulnerable women area in your area rely on exist in four years time.

Think about how quickly children's centres were lost. Could we have saved them if more than 33% of the local population had turned out to place valid votes? Yes.

don't deserve a lick o' my shite let alone my vote.

Right, this is what I'm going to write on my ballot paper

at the moment most of the Councillors on that Council are Labour, consider voting lib dem. If they get a seat they're going to be looking carefully at what their labour colleagues are doing and objecting if they think it's wrong

In normal times I would agree, but as all apart from conservative are twaw what's the bloody point. Also in normal times I would vote for the least worst (which is now I look at it a stupid way to vote)
Right now in current year I believe strongly that women matter far more than they are being represented. So I will withhold my vote until someone cares that women are losing spaces reserved solely for them.

And inevitably one day some numpty will be interviewed and say, well we never knew women felt so strongly about this, then I and others can prove that lie in many many ways, not least our ballot papers.

Arabella a (female) friend of mine is standing in our local election, I admire her for at least trying to make a difference, we actually have plenty of women on our local council. I hope she gets in (will update later).

Local politics really isn't (or shouldn't be) about parties. By flying under a particular banner they get their leaflets paid for. It doesn't mean they agree with everything the party says. This is where talking to the candidates is so important.

If you want an opposing view in your local area to scrutinise decisions that are being made it might be useful to vote for whoever is likely to get a minority seat. Eg, at the moment most of the Councillors on that Council are Labour, consider voting lib dem. If they get a seat they're going to be looking carefully at what their labour colleagues are doing and objecting if they think it's wrong.

I have a choice of the abusive Labour person, green, libdem or Tory. I can't vote for any of them.

@Ragwort I agree about voting rather than spoiling votes - just wanted to ensure that the OP didn’t accidentally cast a vote for someone they didn’t support. If there was more interest in local politics we’d all get better local politicians.

I have stood for election at district and county council level, and I've been shown the spoilt ballots. I remember a little bunch one year that had written 'ukip' as that's what they wanted but they weren't standing.

This is really about how emails are phrased. As you say it's not a mainstream issue, so a long detailed and generic email is going to be difficult to reply to. It needs to be short and to the point about very specific local issues. Then if the candidate doesn't know what the situation is locally they can find out.

X was a really important service in our town, I'm disappointed that Y has happened because Z. If elected will you reverse this decision?

sdp.org.uk/ link to them, think they were Brexit people, but frankly I'm beyond caring about that anymore!

Life long Labour voter here, but this year for the London Mayor I'll be voting for SDP, Steve Kelleher (or something like that) doubt he'll get in, but I could t bare to not vote and they are the only ones that talk about women's rights and transgender rights, so it seems they get it...

And at least one candidate last time admitted on Facebook that she had been shown the spoiled ballots and seen how many gc people there are in that district. And a lot of cock and balls she said.

I wish more people would just get involved in local politics and at least try to make a difference than rant on about spoiling their vote .

I agree with Treats. It's far more impactful to vote for an opponent then email both to say why.

However I am amazed that if eg, there's no dv refuge shelter in your area you haven't been prepared to individually contact all the candidates, ask which one will reinstate it, then campaign locally to vote for X person to get it back!!

That would be a far more effective way to ensure the refuge comes back then sulkily writing on the ballot paper something that only other GC people will understand as a reference to refuges.

Do you want real action that will help people in your area or do you want to make a point that probably won't be understood and might not even be read?

Possibly my agent was shown them. Either way, I have no idea what was written on them, so it wouldn’t have been an effective way of sending a message.

I did listen to what people said on the doorstep and read the emails people sent me though. Especially if they said they were going to vote for my opponent because of my position on a specific issue.

I’ve been a candidate on a number of occasions and have never been asked to look at a spoilt ballot paper.

Who was running your counts? Were you there throughout the night? Maybe your agent did it.

I’ve been a candidate on a number of occasions and have never been asked to look at a spoilt ballot paper. Whatever political view you want to express, spoiling your paper only shows me that you don’t feel strongly enough to move your vote to my opponent.

If you want to send a message to a specific candidate, vote for their opponent and write to them directly to tell them why.

I do sympathise with people saying that they can’t vote for anyone. Maybe look closely at the individual candidates - what they do on your local council will be more important to your community than their national party’s policy on trans rights.

It's a small protest, but candidates do read all spoiled ballots

This isn't true. They will be scrutinised by tellers, to see if there is any way that the marks on the paper could be construed as a valid mark for one candidate.

But no-one is reading or paying attention to anything else.

If it makes you happy, then do it. But don't be under a misapprehension that what you write will be read, recorded or remembered. They care only about whether the marks on the paper should be counted as a vote.

Thus myth was doing the Internet rounds at the time of previous elections. I really thought it had been fully explained as rubbish then, but it looks like it's one that has inexplicably developed some sticking power

Is it? Oh, dear. Apologies, if so.

Here is the Electoral Commission's advice on ballots:

www.electoralcommission.org.uk/media/3906

If the result is close the presiding officer will be asked to look at the spoilt papers just in case a teller made the wrong call.

It's a small protest, but candidates do read all spoiled ballots

No they don't.

Thanks Arabella. I too have always voted and I am horrified at the thought of not doing so, but I think this issue is so important and so fundamental. I have also been stripped of legitimate ways of addressing it through the ballot. I will write NONE and put the suffragette quote below it. I am terrified but determined

Thanks for that link Arabella.
Quite simply I'm not voting for any party that wants to remove my rights - as far as I'm concerned, they're the ones who should be ashamed of themselves.

The only alternative I have left is to vote Conservative and I'm not quite ready for that yet although I don't criticise anyone who does.

Local councils have a statutory duty to assist women trying to flee domestic violence.

www.gov.uk/government/news/government-unveils-new-support-for-survivors-of-domestic-abuse

Despite that, I'm in a city that no longer has a single refuge or bed for women and children. There used to be one. Its just no longer open to women.

So dont get angry at whether or not I vote or spoil my ballot. I'm acting on local conditions.