Coordinating spoilt ballots

There is a long-standing tradition that the main parties do not stand against the Speaker. While this may seem to be an honourable approach, lots of people who live in the Speaker's constituency feel that they are being denied democratic representation.

As I recall the Speaker’s seat had by far the highest number of spoilt ballots at the last election as well.

There have been quite a lot of stories about this, and how even though the number make it look like an historic win for Labour, they actually got fewer votes.

I think it is among the 3 lowest turn outs since 1918.

The most recent before this was Tony Blair being re-elected.

Date.....Votes.....Party
1931.....76%.....National Gov
1935.....71%.....National Gov
1945.....73%.....Labour
1950.....84%.....Labour
1951.....83%.....Conservative
1955.....77%.....Conservative
1959.....79%.....Conservative
1964.....77%.....Labour
1966.....76%.....Labour
1970.....72%.....Conservative
1974.....79%.....Labour
1974.....73%.....Labour
1979.....76%.....Conservative
1983.....73%.....Conservative
1987.....75%.....Conservative
1992.....78%.....Conservative
1997.....71%.....Labour
2001.....59%.....Labour
2005.....61%.....Labour
2010.....65%.....Coalition
2015.....66%.....Conservative
2017.....69%.....Conservative
2019.....67%.....Conservative
2024.....54%.....Labour

Did Not Votes were by far the largest grouping.

Lowest turnout since 1950.

Isn't it. Someone also posted on X that there was over 700 where they live.

My seat had 168 spoilt ballots. I also checked the Speakers seat 1198 spoilt. That was more than 2 of the candidates got !

I am thinking of getting my defeated ex-MP's election literature and sending it back to the party with "HAHAHAHA Women Won't Wheesht" scrawled on it. Would that be petty?

The Electoral Commission will publish all the spoiled ballot data (another pp may already have linked to it upthread). There is an excel file that can be downloaded showing detailed info for every constituency - from which of course you could create your own map.

For 2019 the largest spoil % was in the Speaker’s constituency at 3.16%. Thereafter one constituency passed the 1% mark; 1.04% in Leeds North East.

the 3rd highest was then South Derbyshire at 0.8%.

6 of the constituencies from the 20 with the highest spoil percentage were in Northern Ireland.

my local constituency looked to be about 0.4% last night, only marginally higher than the 2019 figure.

in 2019 275 constituencies exceeded 0.36%, with 351 below it. The balance being on 0.36%.

Lowest percentage was 0.10% at Barnsley Central and Barnsley East.

Interestingly the 2019 rejection rate for postal votes (eg these don’t make it to the actual count) was 2.17%, with 23 constituencies having a rejection rate of over 5%.

I think if 50% of ballots were spoilt - or even if 5% of ballots were spoilt - we would already have heard about it as there would be an investigation. The drop in counted vote numbers pretty much correlates with the drop in turnout.

There has been an organised campaign originating well over a decade ago. One that has achieved precisely nothing.

it will be interesting to see the overall % of spoilt papers at this GE - given the 0.36% at the last GE, just below the 0.38% peak recorded in 1979. So even if spoils doubled still well below 1%.

In some constituency the returning officer not only mentioned number of spoilt ballots but why eg Blank, Written Across, and ... etc.

So I think there seems to be a problem with a few individuals who did not absorb the system they were part of, or the returning officer didn't know their job.

I think if we dont get voter reform there should be an organised campaign of spoilt ballots especially if over 50% of ballots were sploit.

Here is a link to the Electoral Commissions stats for the 2019 election. Haven’t properly looked but may be interesting to compare with the latest ones. Includes postal votes where figures for overseas voters have gone up.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-05/UKPGE%202019-%20Electoral%20Data-Website.xlsx

I am adding my name to the list of spoilt ballots. Labour was a pretty safe win here and having thought about it, spoiling my ballot was the right choice for me.

I looked at the turnout for my constituency this morning, it is well down on the figues from 2019, so I am very glad that I went.

I contacted my Lib Dem candidate and he didn't reply so I didn't vote for him. He came within a few hundred votes of taking a true blue constituency but didn't quite manage it.

We were part of Jeremy Hunt's old constituency and he wasn't our candidate this time but I'm certain that if he had been our Tory candidate and I'd written to him I would have received a reply. I think few Tories have worked harder locally to cling on.

No shit sherlock.

You know we tried contacting many many MPs and lots didnt respond yeah.

I have been a volunteer on polling day for the count.
Spoilt ballots go into a pile. No one looks or reads the content or asks
You are basically telling a bunch of local volunteers your viewpoint who aren't exactly the people who can effect change.

Where Grant Shapps lost the “written on “ spoiled votes were mentioned specifically.

Especially since the exit polls said it looks like it might be the lowest turnout since WW2.
I gues we will see.