Are you voting in the next general election purely on the transgender issue?

I'm glad you are more confident now in speaking out about your beliefs.

You're right, spoiled ballots are 'noted' (lumped in amongst those that are null/ void for any other reason) but the fact is that no one gives two hoots about this statistic.

As long as a party are voted in - which they will be - politicians do not really care. They are not going to analyse and reflect on why it happened. And it will be years until you get another chance to utilise your vote.

Yes I am

I can’t see when you’ll not have Labour, I can see why you feel as you do

If you spoil your vote in suffragette colours, they may be picked up by the cameras and commented on.

Be glad you don’t live in Wales or you would have had to suffer the disaster that is Labour!

No. The Tories have been a fucking disaster for women, can't wait to see the back of them

I'm happy to disagree on whether or not it was pointless. As has been commented above, if there are rising numbers of spoiled ballots this does get noted.
Writing my note and knowing that one person may have read it was an early part in my journey of using my voice outside of an online forum to speak out about the harms that relate to gender identity belief. Finding the courage to speak out IRL (which I do now) has been an important journey for me.

Some folks are certainly rude and sneery enough on here that they could be politicians!

Well I believe there is always a less bad option.

And I believe that it's better to vote for the option you think is less bad, than try to make some kind of point by spoiling your ballot (because in reality, I don't believe that doing that does make a point at all).

We are all in a shitty situation of having to choose between options that we feel are not quite right. I don't know a single person who actually believes strongly that any politician is going to make big improvements and turn things around.

We are really all in the same boat and I am just trying to urge people to consider voting for what they think it the least bad option, rather than wasting their vote.

Exactly.
For policy makers, having these data sets:
x% spoiled ballots as not willing to vote for any candidate
x% didn’t vote (for X reason)
Will not influence their policy making.
And if you are so concerned about sending a message about being politically homeless, you’ll vote for the status quo (aka spoil your ballot) what action are you taking to create the political party you want?
And BTW it’s weird to associate political parties with home. None of them are cosy, perfect, comfortable. Politics is life which is messy and unpleasant and full of compromise. Unless you’re spoiling your ballot at the same time as being politically active in other ways I have zero respect for you. It’s a bit like ranting on social media. You’re only doing it to make yourself feel good.

Democracy doesn’t happen to or for us. We are it.

I'm not asking anyone to be perfect.

Just not hating women would do, at this point.

Well you can and will do what you like but it seems unlikely that the random polling station volunteer who might have read your little comment had any particular reach or influence with anyone that mattered, any more than anyone seeing and replying to messages on this forum.

In fact, your comments on this forum are reaching far more of an audience than that ballot paper.

It sounds like it helped to vent your frustration, so good for you I guess - but it was 100% pointless as a way to use your vote.

I think if the numbers keep increasing, which they will, then the parties will have to start considering it. It’s certainly been something jumped on here since the last local elections, the turn out was lower than usual and the spoiled papers higher.

i also think that people deserve to have their political decision counted, and as unpalatable as it is to some, spoiling for the reason of not feeling able to vote for any of them is a political decision.

Talk about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.

Yes, I know what spoiling your ballot means.

I'm just trying to decide whether I loathe all the options so equally that I don't much care which of them gets elected, or whether one is less bad than the others.

There really isn't any need for the scolding tone (intentional or unintentional) in so many posts on this thread.

Reasoned arguments are fine. I 'know' a lot of the posters on here who are talking about spoiling their ballots or desirous of a 'none of the above' option; and without exception I believe them to be open to persuasion when offered a persuasive argument that accords with their deeply-held values.

And cheers, Harriet Taylor Mill for being a literary port in a storm when I was a girl surrounded by the punishing real life hegemonic mediocrity of average males.

They impress me because they have their own thought out positions that they are prepared to argue, debate and justify. We need more MPs like that across all parties. Not like Kier Starmer trying desperately not to answer questions.

I wrote a short message when I spoiled my ballot previously. It felt like an appropriate way to voice my discontent at the options. As at least two counters have to validate a spoiled ballot, I'd like to think someone read my message, which was something to the effect that I won't accept an enforced belief that we all have a gender identity.

Brexit was easy: yes or no. I would agree that a spoilt ballot makes no sense in that scenario. By contrast, we're being asked to vote on values and stated intent which cover issues where the question "What's the impact on this specific issue if I leave the EU?" doesn't apply.

What has finally swung it for me is a combination of a) seeing the traction that the Tories have on this one, truly (as I see it) differentiating issue and b) speaking to my own candidate about this issue (he is actively engaged in supporting LGB rights, women's rights and child safeguarding). I already knew about his good local record outside of this issue - he's an active MP who listens to his constitutents across a multitude of issues and supports them.

I still maintain that spoiling my ballot would have been fully appropriate as a course of action until I had come to the conclusion that I wanted to vote for him. If some people interpret this as me accepting powerlessness or as not being worthy of respect as a course of action, I'll live with that.

The parties should be seeing how many people are politically active, want to vote, but don’t rate any of them.

@ARichtGoodDram

I think what @TheValueOfEverything is trying to get at is, what do you think is going to happen with this information if it's collected? Do you think the useless politicians are going to start to wake up and improve?

As long as a party is voted in (which they will be) then they will not care about this unless a very large number of people start to riot in the streets. They are not going to sit there analysing all the people who are politically homeless and reflect on why that might be. That's just not how things work.

Because I think it would show that there is a massive increase in people who feel politically homeless

I’ll bet any money there are a lot more spoiled votes at the next count and that should be recognised and not just dismissed as meaningless. If more and more and more people feel unable to vote for anyone then the problems are just going to get bigger and people more politically isolated.

The parties should be seeing how many people are politically active, want to vote, but don’t rate any of them.

ATM they just wave off the spoiled votes as daft people who don’t read the how to properly or even dafter people who just draw a cock and balls because they know it gets looked at.

The number of people who’ve actually looked at the issues and decided that none of the parties are worth a vote is something we should know.

Yes I am. Conservatives have Kemi Badenoch and Miriam Coates and Victoria Atkins.
The pp who posted this… have you looked at those MPs voting records on other issues? Because you may not admire them quite so much if you had? Or maybe you would, but just because I think all of those women are good politicians and speakers, most of their ideological postitions go against everything I believe in.

Hasn't it worked in other countries for quite a while? (The 'none of the above' option?)

Any party that says there are trans children don't deserve a vote. There are just children. Some have mental health issues and need help. All this messing around to appease parents with children who are confused forgets the do no harm first. Forgets that you cannot actually change sex.

Thanks for explaining and sorry if my frustrated tone upset you.

But to what end? Why do we need to count the number of spoiled ballots? - what is done with that information- who acts on it? Is it just another data point for people to get mad about and news cycles to dwell on? Who will follow up and how? That’s my point. We need to be serious and practical.

I wholly agree that when we get close enough to have candidates, emailing them with questions is going to be very useful.

I have no intention of spoiling my ballot so no need for your tone thanks.

i think that should be an option for people who do it so we can see the actual numbers of people opting for this.

Its a political choice, not one I would take but is one, and it should be counted rather than lumped in with mistakes. I’ve thought that ever since working the count at the last election and thinking it’s wrong that someone who wrote why they’ve made an active choice to spoil was counted in the same bundle as someone who made a mistake.