Have you spoilt your ballot? A thread to indicate numbers

Fuck, no. I haven't voted yet, but literally nothing is more important than getting these blowhard, lying, coffer-grabbing morons out of office.

There are always spoilt ballots. Lots of people vote for more than one candidate, that is one of the most common ones. Just be aware, yours is going to count as the same as theirs. Do it if you feel it is your best option. But just understand what you are doing, that is all

The other reason why spoiling your ballot is preferable to not voting at all is that it gets recorded that you've voted.

Political parties have access to demographic information on voters. There's a reason that the conservatives and labour are falling over themselves to preserve the triple lock on pensions. Its because older voters are much more likely to vote than younger people.

If huge numbers of women choose not to vote at all in this election, that automatically makes your voice less important to the parties in future elections. So even if you spoil you ballot, please please go and vote.

I care about democracy. i don't care if people choose to spoil their ballots or not. I care that people who do choose to do so are fully informed abut what that means

I will be, no option here. I can’t give my vote to any candidates or party and will be telling them exactly why on my ballot paper.

I refuse to endorse the loss of woman’s and girls rights, endorsement of child abuse and support for an actual genocide in our time.

I’m staggered that there is not at least one party I can support.

Equally the decrease in vote share even if the same person is returned, is of note. As is the turnout level which I suspect will be low.

for someone who 'doesn't care' you're spending a lot of time telling people why they're wrong

We get this a lot on here.

Yep, my town is similar to yours @YouJustDoYou but with the SDP and Christian People's Alliance as bonus, pointless options.

There are 2 alternatives for people, like me, who feel they can't vote for any of the options available. Either we don't vote at all, or we spoil our ballot. if we don't vote we just look disengaged. If we spoil there is a chance that someone may see why, and if a sufficient number of people spoil - as the total number of spoilt ballots is recorded - any large deviation from the usual number would raise questions as to why a significant number of people felt engaged enough with democracy to cast a vote, but not represented by the choices available. That is the decision people are making.

And for someone who 'doesn't care' you're spending a lot of time telling people why they're wrong

There is not a single candidate I can support. I wasn't going to bother voting at all but eventually decided to spoil my vote as a protest. Maybe no-one will see it, or care, but it made me feel better.
Interestingly I discovered that there was an SDP candidate standing. I didn't know the party still existed!
<memories of Spitting Image and David Owen>

The town where I live is Tory and has been for many years, we have a number of hotels with illegal migrants where rape and stabbings have increased, our town is run down and decrepit, we have no police it seems anymroe, people openly do drugs....it's a shit show. And what's scary is that Labour will just make it even WORSE, so I don't know...I hate both Labour and the Tories, Lib Dems like Labour think women can have a penis and our only other two candidates are Reform and Green, but I saw what Green to Brighton so that leaves Reform...

Hmm. Using your logic then I'd vote Tory. The only Sex Realist candidate in my constituency is the Tory candidate. I will not vote for a party that doesn't believe that female facilities are for people with XX chromosomes only. (My 'right thing')
I live in a marginal constituency.

How can you possibly recommend voting Green to someone whose concerns are around misogynistic legislation and the erosion of women's rights?!

At the end of the day, no-one is coming out and saying 'transwomen are transwomen' so whoever gets into power isn't going to solve this issue. I am resigned to the fact that we will need to keep fighting it for the foreseeable future. I DO believe that the tide is turning and actually I think that the more ridiculous things become, the more likely the apathetic 'this doesn't affect me' people are going to start standing up and voicing their opinions.

I work in education and our schools are under threat of bankruptcy - budgets have been cut and cut while more high needs students are being placed in main stream schools. I have family and friends who depend on the NHS and cannot get appointments - I myself have just had a hospital appointment come through for April 2025!

I understand why people feel they want to spoil their ballot paper but honestly I could not bring myself to do it. I am one of the people who do the Count at elections and I know for a fact that the only purpose spoilt votes serve is to give some light relief to the poor staff who have been awake all night. They are looked at by the Returning Officer to decide whether they show any indication of a clear vote and then they are discarded. The total number of spoilt papers are recorded but there is no differentiation between those which have been completed incorrectly (maybe due to ignorance) and those who have made an active 'protest'.

I have always used my democratic vote and been grateful for it. I will vote with my conscience and continue to Fight the Fight with regard to women's rights.

A spoiled vote is a vote for the status quo. We all know that in this two party system, any vote that isn't for Labour will keep the conservatives one step ahead. Go ahead and spoil your ballot card if it makes you feel better, but don't pretend it is the right thing to do

I am not saying don't do it if you want to do it, I am just saying don't go away with the impression that anything you have said will be read, and don't tell other people that anything they have said on their ballot paper will be read, recorded, remembered, or anything

It just gets counted along with those that get a pen accidently dropped on them, or people tried to vote for 2 or 3 people at once, or whatever.

I think the best thing to do - but difficult - is to make it ambiguous. It’s then more likely to be looked at by the parties. But of course if it is ambiguous there is a chance that it might be counted as a vote. We have a communist candidate who is very strong on women’s rights but who I disagree with in other ways - I think n I’m going to write something about women’s right and suggest that I want to vote communist. This may then end up counting as a communist vote or as a spoilt ballot. There is a better (though, admittedly, still quite small) chance that it will be seen by candidates.

Spoilt ballots mean you care enough to vote but are not satisfied with the choice. That's a protest vote. Millions of those and all politicians would have to take a long hard look at themselves. Personally I think the ballot paper should have a box for- None of the above.

Oh sorry, you are very correct. It's not the counters who have sneery contempt. I stand corrected.

I'm close to despair. I've always voted, and at the start of this election campaign I was fully intending to vote Labour. Defending women's rights is massively important to me but I'm not a single-issue voter and I'd managed to convince myself that in this marginal SNP/Labour seat, the Labour alternative was much better than the SNP incumbent: on women's rights, our SNP MP is full-on TWAW and a nasty, aggressive man as well. I thought anything but him. However, as we get nearer to polling day I'm not so sure. I've emailed the Labour candidate several times now, always politely, with recent reminders starting with "I know how busy you must be...". I've asked whether he respects women's rights to access single-sex spaces, and whether, if elected, he'd be willing to meet with gender-critical women to talk about how difficult it is - either because services that should be single-sex aren't (like Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre in an adjacent constituency) or because women who try to access them face censure and attack. He hasn't replied at all. Last night at a hustings he answered a question on women's rights by saying the conversation has to be better and trans people face transphobia - his answer wasn't as bad as the SNP former MP who thundered that Scotland's gender recognition reform had been scuppered by evil Westminster, but it wasn't good.

This leaves me thinking that at best, he'd be an enabler down at Westminster: he probably wouldn't lead the ideological charge against women's rights that I'm sure will come from some Labour MPs, but he won't do anything to prevent it either. If he can't be bothered to reply to women right now, when he wants our votes, the chances of him engaging with us if elected seem zero.

It's a tight-run race where I am, so my vote matters. I can't believe I'm even considering not voting or spoiling my ballot paper, but I don't want either of these two men to 'represent' me at Westminster.

Going to spoil mine, with a heavy heart, for the first time. It's all very unsatisfactory, and I wouldn't criticise anyone for the difficult choices (or lack of them) in this GE.

There is no sneery contempt among the counters. Your spoilt paper is half a second of admin/ sorting as is every other paper, it is of no consequence to them either way. It is totally irrelevant

Candidates reading what I wrote, which was specifically to do with safeguarding, does have a value IMO. Your view might be different. And what I wrote could not have been clearer. It meant something more to me personally that I did this. I'm sorry if what I did upsets you. But that's not my issue.

People can do what they like with their vote. It is a free country. Scolding people for Thinking And Voting Wrong is hardly a constructive approach.

exactly - NO ONE is going to read your stickers.