Unprecedented numbers of spoiled ballots delay council election counts

[theOtherPamAyres]

I understand that every single spoiled ballot had to be individually scrutinised and adjudicated upon, last night. There were tens of thousands of them - further details are awaited

Interestingly, the papers have assumed that all spoiled ballots were about Brexit. Indeed, there are a lot of ballot papers shared on social media showing just that with the hashtag #spoilyourballot.

But I reckon that this one came from a politically 'homeless' woman.

Spoiled ballot papers are also recorded as part of the official turnout so it is better to make a protest by spoiling your ballot than not vote.

Even if the media is presenting this all about Brexit, as other posters say, the tellers will have seen adult human female etc on the ballot papers. I think I'd write 'None of these represent women' but there were no elections in my area this time.

We didn't bother tbh, most people I know weren't bothered.

Can you put a sticker on a ballot paper? I’m thinking of getting some W=AHF ones and it would probably be easier to stick that on the ballot paper rather than write it out?

I wrote 'none' and 'adult human female' on my ballot paper.

Stuff the lot of them.

Spartacus . Maybe I should just write an essay too.

I REALLY want to stick a sticker though!

If there is no-one you could honestly vote for, then spoiling your ballot paper is the only logical option.

I've seen it in past elections. Non-voters are portrayed in the media as either: apathetic and can't be arsed to get their arse off the sofa and daytime TV and go and vote; or, that they're happy with the status quo and therefore feel there is no reason for them to go and vote.

But: when you spoil your vote - then it's not that you can't be arsed, are apathetic, or happy woth the status quo. Rather, that you made the effort to turn up at the polling station. And you're not happy with the status quo, hence the spoiled ballot.

I applaud all of you who spoiled your ballots: because be assured - someone, somewhere DID look at it carefully at some point, and read what you wrote. They may not have understood, or agreed with you, but someone did have to read it!

They put pictures of my local result forms online.

Rejected papers are counted in the following categories:

A. Want of official mark.
B. Voting for more candidates than the voter was entitled to.
C. Writing or mark by which the voter could be identified.
D. Being unmarked or void for uncertainty.
E. Rejected in part.

C. was the most usual (about 20 per constituency) with the odd B. here and there.

DD2 and I both spoiled our ballot papers and wrote our reasons, I don't think mine were brilliantly phrased but we both mentioned some variation of 'no party supports women's sex-based rights'.

There was no Labour candidate; I used to vote Labour so felt a bit cheated that with no candidate in the ballot they wouldn't even know I'd refused to vote for them - them and their well-known 'women's officer' and all.

I used an AHF sticker. There was a WEP candidate in my ward, I do hope she feeds back the message.

Oh tea, that’s good to know.

I spoiled my paper with a big cross as per the first picture and 'woman equals adult human female'
I will try to take a sticker for the 23rd May elections.

If you want to make sure it doesn't get counted... Put an X in every box.
The write your reason ...
When we counted we had to check there was no X in a box ...

I wrote ‘I cannot vote for any party that supports self id’.

Again

When am I actually going to get to vote for someone?

I love the sticker idea! Imagine if all 170,00 FWR readers did this at the next election, what a splash it would make...

“I spoiled mine but wrote my reasons, which was very conspicuous in the empty polling station!“

Lol, that was me exactly - you could hear me writing with the crappy pencil provided. A sticker would have been ideal.

Me too - deathly silent room, me behind a flimsy screen going ‘scritch, scritch, scritch’ with a little pencil

I actually know and like our Labour candidate, and the local labour branch passed a ‘no self ID for AWS’ motion last year, so I decided to x his box, and also write on the ballot, hoping it would at least have to be discussed as ambiguous by candidates and election agents. I wrote ‘Women’s Rights are for Female People’ (had to turn the ballot sideways and write it across the lined part).

I’ve been to the count several times in the past, but not this time, due to my little girl’s ongoing additional care needs.

I'm not sure why the LibDems are crowing; it's pretty obvious they only picked up seats by default.

What does that mean?

I put two Xs in every box with a woman candidate as I heard they will check more closely if you’ve put Xs and then wrote woman =adult human female at the bottom.

I wrote women = adult human female on mine too

We didn’t have a vote here but to see the Lib Dem’s had gained plus the Greens made me feel sick considering their attitudes towards women and children. I feel like we need proper representation - we don’t have any with any clout. It also made me think that most people are sick of what they see as two polarised sides - labour/conservative and so they just opt for Lib Dem as some sort of super reasonable middle ground. Little do they know. It did make me worry about what would happen if there was a general election soon.
I can’t vote conservative. They are presiding over all this mess- and so many other messes. Can’t vote labour because they have no idea what a biological woman is and so much more. I wouldn’t even consider Lib Dem they are riddled with madness and green just don’t even constitute any kind of horse in the race. If I spoil my vote I risk not even being able to back the least worst option. But honestly I have no idea what that would be.

I didn't vote Lib Dem but I think they'll have primarily gained ground because of Brexit. A lot of people went for the most significant unambiguously Remain party in their area and for many obviously that's the Lib Dems.

Don't know about that. May deeply unpopular for many raesons and the Lib Dems have been the protest vote for unhappy Tories since Moses was in short pants.

You can't simply apply pre-referendum assumptions to what people are doing now.

Well, should the Euro elcetions take place (not a given) then the Brexit Party and Change UK will be added to the mix. I'll be surprised if the Lib Dem vote holds up (there's an argument that CHUK shouild step aside so there's one Remain voice but too many egos in that party for them to do that).