Have you spoilt your ballot? A thread to indicate numbers

[Chrysanthemum5]

Hi all
I've just posted my vote. I live in a constituency where the incumbent has a big majority, and will win again. He is the only one people have posters up for, the only one really sending out leaflets etc everyone else has given up. He is Labour, and full on TWAW, insists there is no conflict with women's rights and refused to talk to me about this issue. The other candidates are the usual mix of Tory and Greens with a sprinkling of independents and Reform.

Politically speaking I am Labour, and always have been. But their attitude towards the rights of women is shocking. To be fair I grew up in a family heavily involved in unions so I always knew the unions were misogynistic but Labour seemed ok. Not any more.

If you have spoilt your ballot it would be interesting to know so that we can see (and maybe politicians can see) what women are thinking

Nope, voted for labour.

I see spoiling my ballot as a waste (although better than not voting at all), so I'll vote for the candidate that most aligns with my opinions, and then work to change their minds on the things they don't agree on.

Luckily my local labour MP has already shown signs of being a bit Terfy, so that makes it a bit easier as well.

@Bobbotgegrinch I would love to be able to vote for my Labour candidate but he refuses to engage on this topic, he simply tells me TW (interestingly he never mentions trans men) are the most marginalised and vulnerable group and self ID will not have any impact upon the rights of women or the use of single sex spaces. So I just can't vote for him and I don't like any of the other candidates policies

yes, they are held up, and the "looking" is to confirm they are spoilt, nothing more. This is to make the judgement transparent. You can't actually see WHAT is written, in most cases, sometimes you can, if it is a single word written very large, and you can ask for a closer view, but that is just slowing down what is generally a tick box exercise that everyone wants done and dusted. I have seen a paper queried, and then several people asked for a closer look, before confirming, yes, it was a paper that couldn't be counted. This happens for random ink blots, and stuff like that. Not writing, which is not read or recorded anywhere. Even if people are interested and do look, it is unlikely to be anyone other than bored officials who are trying to make the time go a bit faster. I've been to many counts and seen it many times. Can sometimes be a job to get anyone to go and watch, and it is supposed to be transparent, so people do need to be watching when papers are held up, to be declared spoilt. The people who go are not generally people who care why the paper is spoilt, and they leave not knowing why anyway. They are just there to confirm it is spoilt

You can argue the toss all you like but I know what I saw.

You know this thread is just going to end up as a big Right Side Of History Vote-Scolding We Own Your Votes and You Are Stoopid and A Waste Of Time halo-polishing self-congratulation, right OP? Oh wait, it already has. Still, I'm sure there is plenty to come so I'll settle in with my self-flagellating birch twigs and some popcorn.

Because yup, I've spoiled my vote, with a heavy heart - none of the candidates in my constituency were acceptable to me. It could be that my spoiled ballot shall be flung aside with a curled lip of sneery contempt by the counters, into a microscopically tiny thimble of stagnant urine. But somehow, I'll live with that more than thinking I owe it to The Heavenly Righteous Party to gratefully offer them my vote as supplication. Besides, if I simply didn't vote, I'd be placed in the equally-sneered-at "lazy can't-be-bothered losers who don't respect democracy" group - at least by spoiling my ballot I made it clear that I could be bothered to vote.

That's fair enough.

As I said, for me having a Terfy MP does make it easier, but I think I'd still vote the same even if they weren't.

This is an important issue, but its not getting enough traction because everything else is falling apart at the same time. The news would much rather focus on the latest scandal, and there's no shortage of them at the moment.

The only things the media can find to bash Labour with at the moment is Corbyn and womens rights. Corbyn is a nothingburger, it'll go away post election, and a Starmer government promises to be deeply boring, which is a good thing! So the primary topic our largely right wing media are going to have to bash him with is women's right. And it'll be glorious, "Women are angry" being the top story on the news. JKR poured a ton of sunlight on this issue yesterday, think how much more amplified that would have been if labour were already in government.

Labour mostly don't have any skin in the game on this, they've leant towards the trans side of the debate because that the way they thought the country was going, and now they've realised we're not, there's a massive amount of inertia involved in changing their tune. When they say the opposite of what they say before, they're accused of flipflopping, so it's all baby steps. Once the media start really bashing them on this, and public opinion starts changing as a result, that's when they'll really start to change their tune.

That's my prediction anyway, watch them implement self-id on day 1 just to prove me wrong!

No, for the first time ever I will refrain from voting. Unfortunately there is no suitable independent candidate in my area and I can't bring myself to vote Labour or to spoil my ballot.

My postal vote hasn't arrived.

You haven't said what you saw was anything different to what I always see. The papers are held up and agreed as spoilt, people see them. People don't read them. no one is actually close enough to read them, except maybe when their is a single word or two words written extremely large in a very thick coloured marker. I've seen that. Occasionally. Just the words "Fuck Off" etc Nothing of any more detail or finesse. I have done it many times, I have supported many candidates.

I have no axe to grind. I am simply here as I am in a position to correct the misunderstanding that a spoilt paper is anything other than a spoilt paper. it is not a secret message, it is not read, or recorded. At least, once in a blue moon it might be, but in general the people who see it are 1. The counter who puts it in the spoilt paper pile and 2. the official that holds it up. Neither are going to read it, record it , remember it or tell anyone else what it says - in fact they are banned from doing so

Spoiling your paper is a complete waste of a vote.

I don't care if you do or not

I do care that you are giving the impression to other voters that it is a constructive option. Giving out such misinformation is anti democratic, as I said

I really don't see the point of stickers because the Ballot papers only go to people who are being paid £10 an hour to count the ballots if there's anything on there other than a single x they just put it aside and throw away it won't have any impact on them, they won't read any scrollings or stickers etc the person you need to get your message to is the candidate.

you need to tell that candidate or all of your candidates exactly why they didn't get your X remember respect to my sex if you want my X

exactly - NO ONE is going to read your stickers.

Candidates reading what I wrote, which was specifically to do with safeguarding, does have a value IMO. Your view might be different. And what I wrote could not have been clearer. It meant something more to me personally that I did this. I'm sorry if what I did upsets you. But that's not my issue.

People can do what they like with their vote. It is a free country. Scolding people for Thinking And Voting Wrong is hardly a constructive approach.

There is no sneery contempt among the counters. Your spoilt paper is half a second of admin/ sorting as is every other paper, it is of no consequence to them either way. It is totally irrelevant

Going to spoil mine, with a heavy heart, for the first time. It's all very unsatisfactory, and I wouldn't criticise anyone for the difficult choices (or lack of them) in this GE.

I'm close to despair. I've always voted, and at the start of this election campaign I was fully intending to vote Labour. Defending women's rights is massively important to me but I'm not a single-issue voter and I'd managed to convince myself that in this marginal SNP/Labour seat, the Labour alternative was much better than the SNP incumbent: on women's rights, our SNP MP is full-on TWAW and a nasty, aggressive man as well. I thought anything but him. However, as we get nearer to polling day I'm not so sure. I've emailed the Labour candidate several times now, always politely, with recent reminders starting with "I know how busy you must be...". I've asked whether he respects women's rights to access single-sex spaces, and whether, if elected, he'd be willing to meet with gender-critical women to talk about how difficult it is - either because services that should be single-sex aren't (like Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre in an adjacent constituency) or because women who try to access them face censure and attack. He hasn't replied at all. Last night at a hustings he answered a question on women's rights by saying the conversation has to be better and trans people face transphobia - his answer wasn't as bad as the SNP former MP who thundered that Scotland's gender recognition reform had been scuppered by evil Westminster, but it wasn't good.

This leaves me thinking that at best, he'd be an enabler down at Westminster: he probably wouldn't lead the ideological charge against women's rights that I'm sure will come from some Labour MPs, but he won't do anything to prevent it either. If he can't be bothered to reply to women right now, when he wants our votes, the chances of him engaging with us if elected seem zero.

It's a tight-run race where I am, so my vote matters. I can't believe I'm even considering not voting or spoiling my ballot paper, but I don't want either of these two men to 'represent' me at Westminster.

Oh sorry, you are very correct. It's not the counters who have sneery contempt. I stand corrected.

Spoilt ballots mean you care enough to vote but are not satisfied with the choice. That's a protest vote. Millions of those and all politicians would have to take a long hard look at themselves. Personally I think the ballot paper should have a box for- None of the above.

I think the best thing to do - but difficult - is to make it ambiguous. It’s then more likely to be looked at by the parties. But of course if it is ambiguous there is a chance that it might be counted as a vote. We have a communist candidate who is very strong on women’s rights but who I disagree with in other ways - I think n I’m going to write something about women’s right and suggest that I want to vote communist. This may then end up counting as a communist vote or as a spoilt ballot. There is a better (though, admittedly, still quite small) chance that it will be seen by candidates.

I am not saying don't do it if you want to do it, I am just saying don't go away with the impression that anything you have said will be read, and don't tell other people that anything they have said on their ballot paper will be read, recorded, remembered, or anything

It just gets counted along with those that get a pen accidently dropped on them, or people tried to vote for 2 or 3 people at once, or whatever.

A spoiled vote is a vote for the status quo. We all know that in this two party system, any vote that isn't for Labour will keep the conservatives one step ahead. Go ahead and spoil your ballot card if it makes you feel better, but don't pretend it is the right thing to do

At the end of the day, no-one is coming out and saying 'transwomen are transwomen' so whoever gets into power isn't going to solve this issue. I am resigned to the fact that we will need to keep fighting it for the foreseeable future. I DO believe that the tide is turning and actually I think that the more ridiculous things become, the more likely the apathetic 'this doesn't affect me' people are going to start standing up and voicing their opinions.

I work in education and our schools are under threat of bankruptcy - budgets have been cut and cut while more high needs students are being placed in main stream schools. I have family and friends who depend on the NHS and cannot get appointments - I myself have just had a hospital appointment come through for April 2025!

I understand why people feel they want to spoil their ballot paper but honestly I could not bring myself to do it. I am one of the people who do the Count at elections and I know for a fact that the only purpose spoilt votes serve is to give some light relief to the poor staff who have been awake all night. They are looked at by the Returning Officer to decide whether they show any indication of a clear vote and then they are discarded. The total number of spoilt papers are recorded but there is no differentiation between those which have been completed incorrectly (maybe due to ignorance) and those who have made an active 'protest'.

I have always used my democratic vote and been grateful for it. I will vote with my conscience and continue to Fight the Fight with regard to women's rights.

How can you possibly recommend voting Green to someone whose concerns are around misogynistic legislation and the erosion of women's rights?!

Hmm. Using your logic then I'd vote Tory. The only Sex Realist candidate in my constituency is the Tory candidate. I will not vote for a party that doesn't believe that female facilities are for people with XX chromosomes only. (My 'right thing')
I live in a marginal constituency.

The town where I live is Tory and has been for many years, we have a number of hotels with illegal migrants where rape and stabbings have increased, our town is run down and decrepit, we have no police it seems anymroe, people openly do drugs....it's a shit show. And what's scary is that Labour will just make it even WORSE, so I don't know...I hate both Labour and the Tories, Lib Dems like Labour think women can have a penis and our only other two candidates are Reform and Green, but I saw what Green to Brighton so that leaves Reform...

There is not a single candidate I can support. I wasn't going to bother voting at all but eventually decided to spoil my vote as a protest. Maybe no-one will see it, or care, but it made me feel better.
Interestingly I discovered that there was an SDP candidate standing. I didn't know the party still existed!
<memories of Spitting Image and David Owen>