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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To let people know how to spoil their ballot?

213 replies

HoofWankingSpangleCunt · 25/11/2019 14:12

Today 13:59HoofWankingSpangleCunt

This election has really brought it home to me how uncomfortable I am voting for any of the three main parties. I don't want to vote for the local Independent on a donkey sanctuary ticket* just because I feel I have to vote for someone. If I do that my concerns about the other parties goes unnoticed.
So tonight Matthew, I'll be spoiling my ballot. It has to be done a certain way to count as spoilt. If enough of us do this then voices will be heard.
advice on how to do it correctly
I'm going to pop my AIBU Vote Button cherry on this thread as it seems apt.
*Or whatever the local issue is.

Subject:
To let people know how to spoil their ballot?

Message:
This election has really brought it home to me how uncomfortable I am voting for any of the three main parties. I don't want to vote for the local Independent on a donkey sanctuary ticket* just because I feel I have to vote for someone. If I do that my concerns about the other parties goes unnoticed.
So tonight Matthew, I'll be spoiling my ballot. It has to be done a certain way to count as spoilt. If enough of us do this then voices will be heard.

I'm going to pop my AIBU Vote Button cherry on this thread as it seems apt.
*Or whatever the local issue is.

OP posts:
bellinisurge · 26/11/2019 10:33

It's not a "grand gesture ". I'm sure no one will notice. But I can't look myself in the mirror on 13th and say I support any of the candidates in my constituency. Nor can I look myself in the mirror on 13th and say I didn't cast a ballot.

PortiaCastis · 26/11/2019 10:35

Don't misuse a hard won vote and tell others to do so, not everybody has the same views as you OP so please don't patronise us

bellinisurge · 26/11/2019 10:36

I think the patronising voices are the ones saying you must choose between piles of shit.

SoupDragon · 26/11/2019 10:38

Grow up, educate yourself and make a choice.

Grow up, educate yourself and realise that spoiling the ballot paper is making a choice.

bellinisurge · 26/11/2019 10:39

The number of spoiled votes in the French presidential election was so high it got plenty of coverage.

BlastEndedSkrewt · 26/11/2019 10:47

why not just not vote - a really low turn out of voters will surely give the same result

bellinisurge · 26/11/2019 10:57

For whom?

bellinisurge · 26/11/2019 10:58

I'm turning out. I'm just not picking anyone to vote for.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 26/11/2019 14:26

MelissaCortezsPastry, I assume you work for a council? Council workers always snap up the polling work because they get paid for that AND working at the council that day.

I don't feel sorry for your 'long hours', you elect to do this so please do get over yourself.

===

All the counting up that is done is done in vain when clown after clown gets into government. Voting for a blue clown over a red clown, in preference to a purple clown doesn't make someone a hero anymore than indicating on your ballot that "you accept none of the above". That's the crazy political system we have to work with.

Only people who agree with the OP will 'spoil their ballots' so no need to 'protect' posters by telling them not to.

BoneyBackJefferson · 26/11/2019 17:14

PortiaCastis
Don't misuse a hard won vote

Its not misusing a hard won vote, its using a vote in the only negative way that I can against a poor system and poor choices.

Original poster
HoofWankingSpangleCunt · 26/11/2019 18:36

soupdragon this point, although simple, seems to fly above the heads of many posters on here.

Spoiling is my choice, the one I can conscionably live with. There are others who think like me who haven't wanted to post because of the name calling and patronising attitude of the Defenders Of Our Democracy.

Those who are bringing up the Suffragettes...do you really think that voting for The Least Shit Party is what those women wanted for us? Hardly.

At least this year I will be able to leave the polling booth knowing I have acted in a manner which rings truest for me. How many of you will also be able to say that?

OP posts:
Tellmetruth4 · 26/11/2019 18:41

Yes and you can wake up the next day knowing you’ve put the ‘Brittania Unchained’ gang in for 5 years to do so much damage to the NHS and workers rights that it will be almost impossible to reverse.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 26/11/2019 19:00

There's no need for that, Tellmetruth. What are you doing to overthrow them? Stabilise the NHS and secure its future funding?

The politics in this country is so deeply flawed that no single party can pull it out of the mire. My politics would be Lib Dem, their manifesto matches what I would want to see but, there's not a hope in hell that they'll get in nor that they'd be able to deliver that manifesto anyway.

All this navel-gazing that some posters are doing is impotent. I'm fine with that but there's no need to be so overtly offensive either.

Original poster
HoofWankingSpangleCunt · 26/11/2019 19:21

I can always rely on a kind voice of reason from you lying.

Yes and you can wake up the next day knowing you’ve put the ‘Brittania Unchained’ gang in for 5 years to do so much damage to the NHS and workers rights that it will be almost impossible to reverse.

You flatter me with wielding so much power ! . If you'd read any of my other posts then you'll have seen that I can place no other vote on the day which will have the effect you think it will. I have never been in a situation like it in all my three plus decades of voting.

I'm not in a swing seat, the margins aren't tiny and my principles won't allow me to support a party which goes against all my beliefs. I'm half Jewish so spineless anti Semite Corbyn is out. Boris because well, how long gave you got? Swinson is out as she's let a load of raging misognyists into a party already known for attracting a lot of niche supporters. She would have had my vote otherwise.

Now, no-one objecting to my perfectly legal right to turn out and spoil my ballot is actually coming up with anything new. I'm finding myself repeating myself for the hordes racing into the echo chamber.

I'm going to go and do something a bit more interesting. Thanks to everyone for their input apart from the posters who were patronising and used personal insults. I'd say you know who you are but in reality I doubt you have that much self awareness.

OP posts:
BoneyBackJefferson · 26/11/2019 19:23

Tellmetruth4

Are you under the delusion that we are under a PR system and not FPTP?

EngTech · 26/11/2019 23:29

Democracy means people can choose how they wish to vote or vote but spoil their ballet paper.

We are not in an Orwellian future just yet and people do actually have a choice

I am also of the post war generation that were made aware of the Holocaust and I am horrified about what I hear in Press about a certain parties approach to the issues raised

Do not let history repeat itself as that is how it all started in the first place by people burying their heads in the sand instead of standing up for the rights of people and stopping them being persecuted

turnthebiglightoff · 26/11/2019 23:34

Bollocks are you exercising your right to vote. What a dick thing to do. Just don't vote and be an apathetic statistic. And don't give me any bullshit about or being just as democratic to spoil your vote blah blah blah. It's a dick move.

bellinisurge · 27/11/2019 06:15

Ok clever clogs, you tell me who to vote for:
Tories- showing them your approval? No
Labour/ I'm half Jewish - the git won't even apologise
Labour-I'm half Irish and old do I remember all the sucking up mascarading as dialogue building just after the Brighton Bomb
Labour- my otherwise decent enough MP is on the wrong side of a crucial local green issue
LibDems- self ID
Greens - self ID
Brexit Party - hell hasn't frozen over yet.
Go on, tell me because I'm a dick and I need your great wisdom.

bellinisurge · 27/11/2019 06:28

Oh yes, and I have voted in every election- every single one - since the mid eighties . Mostly for Labour.

BoneyBackJefferson · 27/11/2019 06:28

turnthebiglightoff

You clearly do not understand democracy.

RuffleCrow · 27/11/2019 06:43

Anyone who tells you to hold your nose and vote for one of them doesn't give a shit about democracy - just the appearance of it.

I'm with Hoofwank (which should surely be a name on a ballot somewhere!) I'll be doing what my conscience feels right with. I have no intention of walking out of that vhurch hall knowing I've just given my support to a biology-denier/ Brexit tubthumper or person prepared to turn a blind eye to antisemitism to further their own career.

That is not what suffragettes fought and died for me to do.

JeffreeStar · 27/11/2019 06:46

Nothing nice to say..so I’m not saying it.

bellinisurge · 27/11/2019 07:14

I'm with @RuffleCrow on this.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 27/11/2019 08:38

Rufflecrow, absolutely. Were Hoofwank on the ballot paper, I'd be voting for her.

I find it frightening that there are posters like turnthebiglightoff who are so conditioned to vote for a particular party, that they can blinker themselves for the sake of form. That's why we are in this mess.

The 'big light' has already been turned off. Confused

bellinisurge · 27/11/2019 09:17

Driving to work in a happy indie 80s Spotify playlist singalongathon, this came on.