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

Ooh nice I like the skulls. ☠️

Look I'm not trying to persuade anyone to spoil their ballot the point of this thread was to explain why I had and ask if anyone else felt the same. We don't need the posts pointing out that spoilt papers may not be seen etc it's a personal choice and we are all adults so can make our choices.

I'll repeat - I won't vote for a party that ignores the rights of 52% of the population. However I accept others will feel differently

No. Conservatives and farage are a far greater threat to any of my ideals. In will be voting tactically for the party best placed to oust the tories

My dh spoke to our labour candidate a few weeks ago, sadly I was out!
We live in a long time tory stronghold that is predicted to go Labour by a landslide. All I've seen is Labour posters and flags, no tory.

My husband asked him about women's rights and children's safe guarding and according to my husband, he did seem concerned about this issue. I am still torn though.

If I don't vote Labour (I am a socialist) I'll put my x on Labour, but spoil it with "if you don't respect my sex, you don't get my X" or something similar.

I've been at counts too, and everyone wanted to see the spoiled ballots. The messages are informative sometimes and helps form an opinion about the voting public who are feeling unrepresented.

Why don’t you email them with specific questions?

Your DH and the candidate might have had too unspecific ‘mates’ talk.

I’m probably voting Tory after all as the only means of keeping the libdems from winning in our constituency. Even worse than Labour on this issue.

No no. You must be mistaken. That can't possibly have happened!! Even if you were there and saw it. We've been told this.

WHY WON'T THESE WIMMIN LEARN

I spoke to a woman recently who is active in politics and has done numerous counts and she said at one count they put all the spoiled ballots on an overhead projector and went through them one by one. The idea that nobody looks or cares is clearly nonsense.

I will be voting Labour so no.

Fake news!!

It’ll depend on loads of things. How close the vote is. How diligent the candidates’ agents are. This sweeping ‘no one looks, no one cares’ is generalising bollocks

nobody is badgering or shaming you. Just informing you. maybe you have got some sort of condition whereby you feel like you are being badgered and shamed when you are not

DO AS YOU ARE TOLD WIMMIN. STOP DECIDING AND DISCUSSING YOUR OPTIONS. YOU KNOW NOTHING. HOW MANY TIMES DO RANDOMS HAVE TO SEEK YOU OUT TO TELL YOU NOT TO THINK FOR YOURSELVES?

And get Malachite's tea on will you? Stick to what you are good at. Sausage chips and beans. The footie's on..

I'd be worried about Signal if she hadn't* *been aware of the effort being put in to badger and shame her and others out of spoiling ballot papers!

During covid an image of the spoilt ballot papers was projected rather than everyone crowding around them being held up.

I am trying to explain to you. This is what happens. No paper can be disqualified without a rep from every candidate being given the opportunity to agree the paper is spoilt. Being given the opportunity to. most don't bother most of the time.

The papers are held up one by one (or an image is projected in covid, which takes far longer, obviously) The official from the returning officer says why they are being disqualified. voting intention unclear, etc. There will be some people there, and some of them will look. They will be too far away to read. They will agree, yes, it has writing on, yes it has too many boxes ticked, whatever. if they wish to look more closely at a ballot paper, they will do so, mostly they won't.

The only ones I have ever seen closely examined and discussed are ones with ink smudges on. Can we reasonably say we know what the voters intention was? Did they vote, then drop their pen, so marking a second box too. (This happens 😂) Did they miss the box but still be close enough for it to be clear which box they think they have marked? Does their mark cover two boxes, but can we still be sure which box was intended? In these cases, the witnesses might ask to approach for a closer view, and there might be a discussion.

If the ballot paper is just written on, we just agree it has been written on, and is disqualified. We won't be close enough to see WHAT is written on it, and no one is bothered what is written on it, and even if they are, and ask to see, it would not be recorded anywhere.

I have examined papers where we needed to agree the voting intention was ambiguous or clear. That is done carefully and we take time.

I have never known anyone ask to read a paper. I have personally tried to stand near enough to read, but can't really, so without interrupting the long tedious procedure to make it longer and more tedious, I rarely know WHAT is written, unless it is large and clear, in a very thick pen, and says something short, like fuck off, or similar - which happens.

can you not tell the difference between badgering and shaming, or just being informed?

Do what you like with your paper, no one is telling you not to. But be informed about it

This thread is embarrassing 🤦‍♀️

It's patronising to imply that I'm not informed. I don't see the point of all this badgering. Fair enough to mention your experience once, but it's just that, the experience of one person. And we all know that the total numbers of spoiled ballot papers are collected. * *

I was going to spoil my ballot, until we got a POW representative, so I'm going to vote for her!

It is not just the experience of one person it is the experience of everyone on this thread who has seen it. Why dont you volunteer for a count and see it yourself?

We aren't stupid, you say it once and we are informed. You dont need to repeat it on every page.

As for the spoiled ballots, I guess it depends on the area and if it's worth looking at them. But I've seen them be scrutinised minutely for any chance it could be a vote for a party that needs 6 more to win. I've also seen them counted and put away. Because even if all 45 were counted as a vote for a n other party, it would make no difference. And it was 45 spoiled ballots in the last local election in may.
I just checked.

I will be spoiling my ballot.

I've also taken part in the local count and agree that just because one person on this thread has decided they are all-seeing and all knowing, my experience of spoiled votes, outside of abuse and/or incoherence are absolutely checked out. Particularly if they reference a specific party/voter. But what do I know? I must be imagining things according to the Count Seer here who clearly has waaay too much time on their hands.

Still here. Not caring. With your long posts. You must write loads when you do care

I'm spoiled for choice.
Do I vote for the party who hates the poor, the disabled and immigrants?
The other party who really really hates immigrants?
The party who hates women who think for themselves?
Decisions decisions.