Is it better to spoil your paper or just not vote?

[cremeeggsonboxingday]

I am really struggling with deciding who to vote for tomorrow in the local election. To be honest, I can't bring myself to vote for any of them. I'm just wondering what would be the best way to make an impact. Would a low voter turn out send a message or would it be better to write exactly what I think of them all on my paper?

Yabu = don't vote
Yanbu = spoil your paper

When you are faced political options which are different shades of the same shit then I think spoiling your paper is the least worst option.

viques · 04/05/2022 12:59
Sorry, I think I have tagged the wrong poster, I am sure someone said they sometimes add themselves onto the ballot paper. I think I will add amillionrosepetals anyway, because I like the board name and it will cause a moment of confusion among the counting staff. ( one of whom is my DD, though not in my borough luckily)

Hello@viques . I'm glad you said that, I was baffled by your earlier post! Just in case - you are only a woman if you have XX chromosomes. This does not mean I am anti-TRANS by the way but the rights of biological women and girls are not something 'optional' that can be removed. I would be honoured to have your vote.😀

I can't understand not voting. It's not a right that everyone in the world has, and it's not a right that everyone in the UK always had either.
You may not love any of the candidates, but pick the lesser evil and cast your vote for them.

I raised this with my local council and told the local elections aren't until next year.

But don't you ever feel like it makes no fucking difference who takes the seat? The candidate can change, the narrative can change but the outcome remains generally the same unless you have a particularly outstanding individual to put a x beside.

This 'choosing the least worst option' when the gap between the two is negligible isn't really what 'women died for so we could have the vote', is it?

I agree - I am not under any misapprehension that anyone will read or care about my "no-one worth voting for" but it truly reflects my views instead of holding my nose and voting for some no-mark git.

So if spoiled votes do mean something, what do they actually mean to the people running, politicians or your average Joe? Nothing.
So yes we can see how many were spoiled when it's all broken down but the winner will still win and go on to do whatever they've decided to do and because you did nothing effective to stop that, you've more or less condoned it.

It has NOTHING to do with shutting women down.

But the person who spoils their ballot believes that both options were bad. The outcome is regardless because they assume that the alternative was either more of the same or equally bad but different.

If you do either you are effectively giving a % of your vote to the party you really hate. But if you refuse to pick one then spoil it. At least that can't claim apathy.

Spoil your ballot paper, as these are counted. But don't bother writing something fancy as it won't be taken into account.

One person at most will read it.

No, spoiled papers are all read out so everyone in the counting room will hear what you have written. There are different degrees of spoiling and all papers have to be looked at to see if there is a valid vote or not. A memorable one in my constituency from the Scottish parliamentary elections last year said, ‘all Tories are cunts’ but as the voter had also put a cross against the SNP candidate, it was designated ‘a clear vote for the SNP’ and accepted.

I have a choice of Conservative (ex Reform UK), Independent (incumbent - ex UKIP) and Labour.

So two racists or the Labour party. There'll be a red flag flying at wor hoose.

As a poll clerk and a vote counter....

A spoiled vote is a spoiled vote. It would take hundreds of spoiled votes in an electoral ward before anyone would bother to look at them beyond that. So if you go and write nothing or go and write an essay it will make no difference. The candidates only see spoilt papers for a few seconds to agree they are spoilt- and essay is an easy decision - it doesn't get read.

Whether turning up and spoiling or not turning up at all makes a difference largely depends on how many turn up to spoil. A high spoil rate might make folks listen... likely however that it will just be a small figure which is irrelevant to the winner.

Your best option is to vote for one of those who have taken the time and trouble to stand. If none of them suit your feelings maybe try and get involved in your local community/politics so that next time the offering does represent you more.

I think I've only spoiled my ballot paper once. This was an election for a police & crime commissioner (which shouldn't exist anyway) and all of the candidates were representing political parties (who shouldn't be influencing policing) rather than independent candidates.

I also spoiled my ballot on a PCC election for the same reason! The only other time was when, at a local election, there were only two candidates and both were Tories so there was no least worst option for me.

I would spoil my ballot rather than just not vote. But as others have said, try to vote for someone as a non/spoiled vote is effectively supporting the incumbent.

There were a lot of spoiled votes in the recent by-election following David Amess's murder and it was commented upon by the media (including saying what one of the spoiled ballots said!) and the elected MP. It was probably due to the fact the other main parties didn't stand; there was also a low turnout which was also commented on. But it does show spoiled papers are counted and looked at.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-60254176.amp

In GB, these are simply local elections where you're voting for councillors to run your local town or city.

Frankly, I don’t care. Aside from the fact that it IS taken as a barometer of public opinion of the national parties, most people don’t even look at the individual names and just double up on the national party they vote for; so if you seek to get voted in purely on the coat-tails of a particular national party, you have an absolute cheek in complaining when that same national party’s policies and lack of popularity deter people from voting for you, and only then frothing that they have nothing to do with you.

Neither will make an impact. You will just waste your vote. Nobody will care or notice other than to think a proportion of society is apathetic.

I very much disagree. How can anybody think that somebody who took the trouble to come out and vote is ‘apathetic’? It’s the people who don’t come out to vote at all who are considered apathetic, or worse, claimed by deceitful incumbents in safe seats as being ‘obviously happy’ with the job they’re doing.

Yes, a spoilt paper could have been spoilt by mistake, but the fact that you came out to vote confirms your engagement in the political process. Imagine if most people did it and you ended up with 7% of the vote for Party X, 5% for Party Y and 88% spoilt ballots. There’s no way the candidates could possibly claim that all of those people made a mistake, nor could they claim anything other than a technical victory in the rock-bottom confidence of the electorate.

I get the whole argument that you may be better off voting for the least worst, but, that then means that your least-worst doesn’t know that you haven’t decided “Yes, 100% behind him/her – perfect (wo)man for the job” and/or can assume/claim that, as, like it or not, a vote is technically a positive endorsement and only a non-endorsement of the opposition by default.

If there is somebody you don’t fully like/trust, but you detest the other one, by all means go for it; but if you’re effectively being asked to choose if you would prefer dog poo or cat vomit for your dinner – technically being asked to state “Yes, this is my preference/favourite meal” – you can see why people believe it’s Hobson’s choice and are thus not willing to actively endorse either.

Always vote.

Don't spoil your ballot paper (you don't honestly think anyone will even read what's written, let alone act on it?).
Voter turn-out is at least monitored, but low turn-out does not in itself mean the political parties will change their policies/behaviour.

Why should I vote for people I don't want to? At least spoiling my paper shows I wanted to vote but the available options were all too shit/shite.

All it shows is that your vote is invalid. There's no attempt made to analyse who made an error, who didn't understand the instructions, or whatever.

Th only scrutiny is to establish if the marks on the paper can be fairly interpreted as a definite mark for a single candidate

All that is recorded is the total number.

I doubt that categorical research does - or could - exist, but I'd be very interested to know what percentage of spoilt ballots were people who couldn't understand the clear concept of 'Clearly mark ONE 'X' next to the name of the ONE person you would like to win and do not make any other marks on your paper' (or whatever the exact wording is) and what percentage appear to be people wishing to register their protest at the choices available.

Considering that most 7yo children could easily understand the former, I know there will be some over-18s who would get it wrong by mistake, but I can't believe that it's a large proportion. Why would anybody who does understand it but doesn't really care about the election itself and is just having a stupid laugh even bother to turn up in the first place?

No one single spoilt vote makes any difference in itself, but then a single actual vote rarely makes much difference in isolation. It's all about the total numbers; and I personally maintain that 'X-thousand spoilt votes' sends a much stronger message than 'X% of eligible voters didn't turn out to vote'.

If you were running a business, you would care far more about the number of actual customers who registered neutral/negative levels of satisfaction than the many people who never showed any interest in your product or service or considered it relevant to them in the first place.

There is a procedure for spoiled papers and I can guarantee that the candidates and their agents WILL see them. Here's why -

Spoiled ballots are put to one side. Before the final figure is tallied agents and candidates are invited to look at the papers to agree they're spoilt OR to try to argue it is in fact a valid vote for them. If the vote is very close then it can be quite vociferous I've been going to counts as candidate or counting agent for over 20 years and I can tell you that at all of them the candidates or at the very least their agents get the opportunity to see the paper and whatever slurs, humorous comments or essays are written thereon (don't make it too long though - go for short and pithy)

So if you want to get a message across spoiling your vote is more effective than not voting.

PS I once saw the content of an "essay" ballot causing great contention at an extremely close count as one candidate tried to argue the content expressed a preference for them. They didn't win they argument but they did win the election by 3 votes 😂

I think a spoilt ballot indicates a rejection of all candidates rather than can't be arsed to vote. Whether it impacts the outcome is irrelevant, it does tell candidates you would bother to go to the polling station and put an X next to a name if you thought any of them were worth it but on this occasion none of them were.

You can look up how many spoilt ballots there are at any election. There 237 at the last GE in my constituency, mine was one of them.

France has a "none of the above" option which was filled in by 4 million voters at the election before last, that's quite a powerful message.

France has a "none of the above" option which was filled in by 4 million voters at the election before last, that's quite a powerful message.

This is so simple - why on earth don't we do this too?

I bet the men on Reddit aren’t being told to spoil their votes

I bet the men on Reddit who intend to spoil their ballot aren't being corralled into choosing a shitty option to honour the men that could have only dreamed of choosing a shitty option prior to the Representation of the People Act.

That kind of emotional blackmail tends to only be leveraged at women.