How to spoil your ballot paper

[CandidateX]

I am not telling anyone what to do. I am giving information. This is because I have seen how posters are treated on other threads giving this information, and it isn't very nice!

Do what ever you want, but here is some information about spoilt ballot papers.

If you write on your paper, whatever message, it will NOT BE READ. Except maybe by the counter that puts it into the spoilt ballot paper list. But only if they have time to read it, mostly not.

It will be held up and agreed to be spoilt, in front of a committee open to all parties. but they won't read it, and the person holding it up won't read it. No one has time. Many papers are spoilt. Everyone is tired and busy. No one will be standing close enough to read the words.

There is a lot of talk about spoilt ballot papers being scrutinised by candidates, and this is how to get a message across to them.

NOT TRUE

Ballot papers are not scrutinised if they have been written across.

I have a list of circumstances when I might ask to inspect a paper closely, and papers written on don't come into it. I would not waste my time or anyone else's time on a paper that is clearly deliberately spoilt, because the business of the night is count votes, and there are literally tens of thousands to count, and that is clearly not one of them

The ones that are scrutinised are the ones that MIGHT have a valid vote on them.

So if you want to put a message on your paper to be scrutinised, then it must have something on it that might be counted as a valid vote. That way, people in the confirmation committee will be looking closely at your paper, and only then will they see the message.

A paper that is signed is invalid if the signature can be read.

If you want to spoil your paper then you need to make it worthy of discussion, about whether it has a vote on it or not.

So I suggest a CLEAR vote, for whichever party you dislike least. And your written comment that you want to be read. And a scrawled signature, which is not your name, and not legible.

This, I think, might get your comments read by agents of different parties - because they will be discussing whether this is a valid paper or not, and does that vote count, and is that signature legible. Your vote might or might not be counted in the end, probably not, but possibly, so don't do this if you definitely don't want to be counted.

Of course, the message might still not be mentioned to the candidate, or to anyone else at all, but this is the only way I can think of to get comments on a spoilt ballot paper read, because otherwise it doesn't happen, it is just a count for the spoilt paper party, and no one knows or cares why.

Because the political parties are doing such a great job representing women! I actually had a canvasser tell me that worrying about women’s healthcare was a niche issue - that’s how 51% of the population are seen - as a niche issue

Way to miss my point!

Exactly. It helps the incumbent party on the main since its not for any opposition. Interesting that it's being promoted so much. I wonder how many will follow the suggestion to spoil.

Probably about the typical <0.4% of those who vote at 21st century GEs

Reading all the articles on it, I feel there will be more this year.

No one is forcing you to vote. It's not mandatory.
Don't waste your time dicking around with your ballot paper. No one cares how clever your comment is, or how pretty the picture.
Either vote or don't. If you think no one deserves your vote, don't vote.
Why not vote for the least worse and actually campaign for change?
Your 'protest' will not be noted, it's no different to the ballot papers that are accidentally spoiled.
Your self satisfied Hmmph so there! Will go unremarked.

Vote or don’t (I hope you do). Spend the time you would put into spoiling your ballot writing a proper letter to your MP, which might at least have the chance of being read by someone.

How to be thpecial

I totally agree that spoiling your ballot is a pointless gesture, nobody cares, nobody reads it, complete waste of time.

No. If I don't vote, the parties won't know whether I did it due to apathy or disgust. I want to send them a message, however small, that I am interested, but none of the options appeal to me.

You do you.

I don't get what people are struggling with here. Spoiled votes are counted. That's the closest we have to sticking a middle finger up to the whole political class. Voting for the 'least worst' party will be interpreted as support for them.

If enough people spoil their vote, it sends a message: people want to engage with politics, but none of you are giving them what they want. A smart politician might wonder how they can pick up those engaged but disillusioned voters.

😂

People don't care if you draw a penis on your ballot or scribble nonsense. You do you. If it makes you feel better, you won't change anything though. You'll end up with whoever gets the most votes from the rest of us.

That's the closest we have to sticking a middle finger up to the whole political class

but the “political class” don’t care. Nobody cares or pays any attention to your wee protest.

Indeed, voter number 1,678,435 in Kent scribbled on their paper. Woopy do. Everyone will be talking about the winners and losers not the people who scribbled.

What always amazes me is that some posters don’t seem to understand that people can have a different opinion without hurling insults at them. We live in a democracy and you should respect others may feel differently to you. We seem to have lost the art of a sensible debate.

I have never suggested anyone spoils their vote nor said to draw rude pictures, not sure many other posters have either. However, I do understand how they feel when you have red lines you aren’t prepared to cross and be seen as endorsing them by voting for them.

As for being influenced by bots to think this way, that could be said for any political message. You only have to read about the influence of deepfakes/tiktok etc and you may find that a large proportion of the electorate believe memes/soundbites etc without probably truly understanding what they are voting for. “It must be true, I read it on Facebook” is a phrase that springs to mind.

💯

Very unlikely. The work they would have to do to 1) find the people who spoilt and 2) understand will result in maybe 0.4% increase in votes for them at the next GE and very few parties or candidates are in seats where that kind of margin counts so unlikely to be seen as worth the return on investment.

They would get a better result engaging with those who didn't turn out and trying to get them to vote next time.

Honestly, spoiling makes no sense other than to give people some sort of rebellious buzz in the polling booth.

You realise people can do both, right?

I think a big part of this is wanting to feel special and different. If you want to participate in democracy then do so, if you don't like the political candidates then write to them. It's their job to listen to constituents and represent them, fucking half wit.

It doesn't send that message, because no attention is paid to how the paper is spoiled, beyond blank (typically the largest category by some margin), voting for more than one candidate, and all the rest (usually the smallest number)

It really isn't seen as wanting to engage but not happy with the choices. It's seen as "cannot fill in a form properly"

If you want to send a message, then send it by email to your candidates - at least that way someone reads it and it might get fed in to each party's post-election wash up

People just don't see that spoilt ballots mean nothing.
If The Green party came in 2nd and everyone knew it was done as a f you vote. The parties would know those votes were ones they could turn in the next election by being a better party, I mean could you imagine if both parties lost by 250 votes and the G@reens took 1000.
The spoilt voters are just seen as too stupid to realise that .

Looking on twitter and on here I honestly think that what's being posted is no reflection on what most peoples understanding of spoilt ballots means.

It is so weird that it's being pushed so hard.

You can't win if you actively dislike all of the candidates or the system as a whole. You either spoil your ballot and have righteous MNers saying it doesn't matter. Or you just don't bother voting and then have righteous MNers saying millions of people engaged in hand to hand combat for people in the future to have the right to vote.

I agree. I've seen several similar threads trying really hard to push the idea of spoiling their vote. On Twitter there is evidence of people being paid to write negative tweets about a high-profile individual (someone from Good Law Project showed this happening). We know election interference is a real thing, and it looks like mumsnet is a big target for it. I believe these threads and staged repliers are being paid.