Several peeps have told me, be it over twitter, or in comments, or in real life, that if I have no intention to vote for a candidate proper, then I should at least have the decency to go and spoil my ballot paper come the day. You know, writing “None of the above” and ticking it, writing in fake candidates, or just plain drawing a big hairy dong on the ballot.
Woo, yay, that’ll learn ‘em, ANARCHY! ANARCHY! ANAR-except, I don’t think that spoiling ballot papers is a worthwhile or effective tool to use. I have spoilt my paper before, back at the euro elections last year- it was a choice between spoiling the fucker, or voting Tory, Dan Hannan being the top candidate for my region (back when I thought he was the awesome. My opinion has since dropped, but I digress). I ended up choosing the former, The Dan Han Man was a shoe-in anyway, just as the Tory candidate (Sir George Young, the old git) is a shoe in this election, what with me living in a pretty safe tory seat.
But not this time round, it’s plan ol’ stay at home and masturbate, maybe have a pot noodle for me.
There’s a few things wrong with spoiling the ballot, either for fun or as a “tool”:
1) Go to youtube and find a few vids of election results being read out. Tell me how many times you hear it said that “We had three ballots with “none of the above” written on them”. You won’t. What happens is, instead, we are given a figure, after all the other candidates results have been read out. This figure includes not just deliberate spoils, but the idiots who didn’t read the instruction properly and circled the candidate’s name or something. Deliberately spoilt ballots are never counted separately. That’s because nobody cares. When it’s said that X ballots were rejected, it could be because of many reasons. What use is it lumping your “protest” in with idiots who can’t read? In other words, spoiling the ballot is not a good method of showing dissent, as no one will actually know you’ve dissented. For all they know, you’re just a fool who filled in the paper wrong.
2) A spoiled ballot does nothing to stop government in the short, or long run. As spoiled ballots are disregarded, they don’t count as anything for, or against, any other candidate. In other words, it’s a zero sum game. One of the three biggest criminal gangs is still going to extort you for protection money.
2a) Who do you think actually is going to care? I’ll tell you: You’ll cause some vote counter a couple seconds of inconvenience before he moves onto the next ballot paper. Your witty saying won’t even register with him. In short, you’re wasting time and effort for absolutely no return.
3) Those people who think that going to vote just to spoil your ballot because it’s better than “not voting”, firstly, spoiling your ballot is effectively “not voting” (you just waste time and effort in the process), and secondly, if the vote is to be disregarded entirely, why is spoiling the ballot preferable to the wank and a pot noodle? Do these people honestly think there is some intrinsically good in the act of voting per se?
Spoiling ballots doesn’t work as a method of showing dissent, as no-one will ever really know of your dissent, they take valuable time way from doing something, you know, useful, and, quite frankly makes your sense. Don’t bother spoiling the ballot, just stay home.
If I vote (not sure, just bloody annoyed with the whole system) I’ll vote for somebody obscure who won’t get elected. Advantage is the vote will count, and be part of official figures “others 20%”. And if it’s somebody who won’t get in, then you know you’re not responsible when the Commons starts killing people: a lesson learned from 2001.
You’re probably right, but isn’t it better to light a candle – even one than burns for only a few seconds – than to curse the darkness?
What else have we got? However I vote, the ZaNuLabour placeman gets in – at least if I spoil a paper, I have done something other than just sitting on my arse and waiting for the filth to kick the door in.
I’ve been making similar points about spoiled ballots. Spoiling your ballot is generally less effective as a protest than staying at home, because you still show up in the turnout, so you add to the winner’s capacity to claim a mandate.
The two most effective ways to protest, if you don’t want to help anyone to win are not voting, or, as Ghandi suggests above, voting for a party with no chance winning the election (or an independent). That way, you either reduce the percentage turnout, or you reduce the percentage of votes obtained by the winner.
Both of those are good for undermining the winner’s legitimacy, because no government likes having people saying “they won, but only x% of people even voted” or “you won, but only x% of the people who voted, voted for you.”
Of course, the problem with protesting by not voting is that you’re just lumped in with all the apathetic morons who simply couldn’t be bothered to vote or are just too stupid to care about the way their country is run.
Looks like it’s lose-lose.
I cant see why you would spoil a ballot paper with so many political parties to chose from. One of those parties, who may hold views very similar to you, could end up having some share of power at least.
I really dont think that people want one of the three major parties in power but they are too lazy to find out about other options.
Spoiling a ballot paper means that the vote gets counted as a spoiled ballot, which is published in official results for the election. Therefore, a large number of spoiled ballots in comparison to the number of votes the winner receives does send a message: it states very clearly that more people decided to protest than supported the winning candidate. For an example of this phenomenon having an effect, you need only look at the most recent Scottish elections, which had a ballot paper that was felt to be overly-complicated for some voters (e.g., the elderly) to understand. The large number of spoiled papers in comparison to valid votes made quite a bit of media coverage at the time.
Alternatively, just keep exercising your right to vote a whole once every five years, for parties and politicians that change their manifesto pledges and adopt policies that fly in the face of public opinion as soon as they get a sniff of power, all the while you can do nothing about their failure to live up to their promises except kick yourself for playing a part in the illusion of their legitimacy to govern.
What Rachel says – it proves that you bothered to go out and vote but decided that you didn’t want to vote for a specific party or person. It allows for a metric to be created so you aren’t lumped in with the Non Voter Turnout crowd.
What Paul says – it adds to the winner’s capacity to claim a mandate. It isn’t clear why ballot papers are spoiled just like it isn’t clear why people do not turnout. Not turning out will at least show up in the percentage figures. Spoiled ballots do not. Spoiling a ballot does give the winner the capacity to claim a mandate. There is no way around that it seems.