Can we talk spoiling ballots (again, sorry)

[BadgertheBodger]

I am so horribly torn about what to do in the election

Despite tiny crumbs of hope in some quarters, I don’t trust any of the fuckers to protect women and children. I live in a very marginal seat which has swung between Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem over the last 20 years or so and to be perfectly honest we’ve always been lucky to have decent constituency MPs who have at least tried to do a good job.

Now though. Now I’m thinking far more in terms of the big picture and I want to either put my vote where it will make a difference for women and girls or I think I want to spoil my ballot. I don’t know why spoiling feels like such a terrifying option - does anyone else feel the same?

I remember the first time I got to vote, just turned 18, and I was so fired up by those women who had come before me and fought for my right to wander down to a polling station and have my say. I have never, ever missed since then, 20 years of voting in everything I could (including a few hold-the-nose votes).

Do spoiled ballots actually do anything? Does it rely on enough of us saying fuck this we don’t agree? And would that even change anything anyway?

Sorry to ask (I know there have been threads on this previously) but I feel utterly lost on this.

"Protect Women's Rights: Transwomen Are Men" is currently my front runner.

Spoiling the ballot is the act of integrity of someone who genuinely wants to vote, and therefore makes the effort to turn out at the ballot box. For many of us spoiling the ballot is the only conscienable thing we can do given parties and candidates we simply feel we cannot vote for.

Yes. This.

I will be spoiling my ballot.
If I lived in a marginal seat the decision would be harder but I'm in an area with a consistently large Tory majority, so I don't feel like even if I wanted to vote for any of the other parties, I don't, it would make a difference anyway.
Not sure what I'll write yet. Repeal the gra maybe

I'm voting Conservative for the first time in my life in the hope that it pushes back this pomo nonsense agenda for long enough for the courts to catch up with what's going on and the media to report it for the nonsense that it is and the shocking attacks on free speech/children's safeguarding/medicalised kids etc mean that the left drops it because the public finally knows enough about it back away from it.

I can't vote for the conservatives. I just couldn't do it.
But labour are not representing my views, in several areas, and I don't feel like they even care about listening to women's concerns in some matters...
I will consider spoiling my ballot. I have never done it before.
It might be pointless but I can't in good faith vote for any party at the moment.

"And post a photo of my ballot on this thread"

Be careful. Photography is not illegal in itself, but it may breach the rules on publicising information obtained in a polling station. That definitely includes taking a photo of a ballot's unique identity number (let alone publishing it globally by posting on the internet)

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32451429

"Not sure what I'll write yet. Repeal the gra maybe"

It won't matter what you write. They're only scrutinsed to see if there is any way the marks on the ballot could be construed as a valid vote. Nobody is paying any attention to what is on a spoiled paper, or keeping any note of it. So it really only is your personal venting.

I saw a great analogy on twitter recently - in a first past the post system you need to treat voting a bit like catching a bus. You are unlikely to be able to get on the perfect bus, but you may as well head in the right direction. I think tactical voting and "best of a bar bunch" sorts of approaches are probably the most pragmatic ways to interact with our voting system.

I will be spoiling my ballot paper because I live in a safe Labour constituency. I did this in the local elections and it felt great and made no difference whatsoever to the result. If I lived in a marginal I would vote tactically to get the Tories out.

I will also say that, contrary to what has been said above, candidates and party workers can't help but notice what is written on spoilt ballot papers. I know this from personal experience. If enough spoilt ballot papers contained a message about the same issue, it would certainly register. Whether they do anything about it is, of course, another matter entirely.

a lot depends on whether Labour (the leadership not Dawn Butler) explain their manifesto clearly.

How safe a Labour seat is Brent Central? I think the problem is Dawn Butler, not Labour. She's already trying to undermine the manifesto text.

If you want Labour in power and support women's sex-based rights, you benefit from getting Labour to lose in Brent Central but win everywhere else. If you want the Tories in power, you benefit from getting Labour to lose in Brent Central.

Women's rights defenders, regardless of other politics, benefit from a Labour loss in Brent Central.

Thanks for the warning, MoggyP, very important to know this. I definitely intend to keep my protesting legal and my civil disobedience within the law.

ive spoilt. Didn;t take a photo, be interested if there's enough it might get some journalist interested but i doubt it. Not sure where to post that I have done this....

Done! There's another thread on this, complete with images.

It feels like the only bit of personal autonomy I have in the shadow of the GRA.

I asked for this to be covered by the Guardian as they were asking for news stories..don’t expect anything though

I'm so late to this thread! But I'd think a better way of sending a message - if you're in a safe seat that will never change - would be to vote Green. That way you're telling whichever party wins that you'd like them to focus attention on the awful state of our planet - plastic, global warming, animals.

Just spoiling your ballot seems like such a waste of time. Who cares?

I'll not vote for a party that thinks I'm a non-man, thank you.

Green Party are pro self ID too. I don’t care about the planet when only the men on it get rights.

I spoiled my ballot. Just with the traditional NONE. Like posters have said else where it’s our equivalent of ‘none of the above’ that’s an option in other countries. Spoiled ballots get counted and logged separately to those who don’t vote, it’s not the same thing.

I’m emailing all candidates to explain why I’ve spoiled my vote and that they will get my vote if they are willing to speak up against self ID bill and vote against their party on it. I think everyone spoiling ballots should be doing this, and/or tweeting them/writing to papers and to party leaders and so on. If we make it obvious there’s a large chunk of votes that are up for grabs for whoever stands up against self ID then it’s on them to listen. There are very few candidates willing to do so currently, but if they realise so many voters are against self ID, that it’s the deciding factor for many of us, that journalists and those on social media are now much more open about speaking up against it then mps and party members might be more open to voicing their feelings on it, and while plenty are misogynistic, plenty are simply ignorant and when they realise the scope of the bill and that it will effect their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, or themselves in the case of female mps, then it might click. That’s how these things make a difference, no one expects one women= adult human female on a spoiled ballot to suddenly prompt all parties to cater to them.

"And post a photo of my ballot on this thread"

My polling station had a large sign saying no photography and no mobile phones allowed.