Voter protest

Reasons for protesting

Solutions to your protest

How to register your protest vote

For many people, the issue in an election is not who to vote for; it’s whether to vote at all.

In the 2005 general election (Tony Blair’s third term) 17 million people who had registered to vote did not actually vote.  That was 4 out of every 10 registered voters, and it was almost as many as voted Labour and Conservative combined. The problem is that non-voters just become invisible.  They are not shown in the election results, and not voting is explained away as ‘public apathy’.

So if you or your family and friends are fed up with UK politics and thinking of not voting, we suggest 2 options:

1. Vote for a candidate you trustThink again about the difference it could make if some of those non-voters voted.  The bigger parties were each only supported by 2 in every 10 registered voters, so the additional 4 in every 10 can completely change the result.  Any party or independent candidate can win with that vote.  So if there is a party or candidate who you trust to represent local people with integrity and improve UK politics, vote for them!

or

2. Vote BLANK as a visible protestIf you really don’t want to support any of them, Vote BLANK.  It makes your protest visible, and it says “I believe in democracy and I will use my vote, but I do not support any of the candidates in this election. I want a better politics”.

To vote blank you simply return your ballot paper with no mark against any of the candidates.

BLANK Votes Count

All votes, including blank and spoiled votes, are counted and announced in the results for each constituency on election night.Blank votes have traditionally been few in number because people have been unaware of the option.  Instead, nearly 40% of registered voters have simply not voted.  There has therefore been no media or political pressure to retain blank votes in the subsequent presentations of the results, or even to require all returning officers to separate blank from spoiled votes.

This will change if significant numbers of people vote blank.  It will become a key news story for an election.  Unlike non-voters, blank voters cannot be dismissed as apathetic. The 2008 London Mayoral and Assembly elections have set the precedent for blank votes being formally recognised and retained in results.  (In the London Mayoral election, 13,034 blank votes were cast, and in the Assembly Member election, 39,894 blank votes were cast.)

Blank means BLANKSome people like to write ‘None of them’ or a comment on the ballot paper.  However, in the 2008 London elections these marked papers were classified as ‘rejected votes’, not blank votes, because it could be argued that the vote was unclear or that the handwriting could make the voter identifiable.  So to vote blank, the ballot paper needs to be left completely BLANK.

If you are disillusioned with UK politics, election time is the moment to improve it.  If we all take part in this election - these could be exciting times.http://www.blankvote.org.uk/blank_votes_count.html

How can we be sure blank votes will be counted?

Contact electoral commission

What was the result of blank votes following the 2010 election?

The AV voting system was rejected by the electorate in 2011, who favoured first-past-the-post.

Blank votes would reform democracyDisillusionment is not indifference, and a blank vote illustrates a continued willingness to engage with the democratic process

Balaji Ravichandran / theguardian.com / Saturday 17 April 2010

Democracy, we learn at school, is government by, of, and for the people. It's an attractive aphorism, and it sounds convincing. We accept it without much doubt, and through our adulthoods, believe that collectively, we hold the keys to the government. Indeed, the illusion of power is so complete that even when we are utterly powerless, it never occurs to us to question whether the prevalent forms of representative democracy are truly the least harmful ways to self-governance.

We might be inclined to say yes, but ask a woman, a gay man or someone of Jewish faith who lived through the early 20th century, when a decisive majority was against their rights, and soon one might feel different. Even today, imagine one of those daily encounters with a government official – from the managero of an NHS trust to the immigration officials at Heathrow – and then ask yourself the Coetzeean question: "Who serves whom? Who is the servant, who the master?" Do you still feel powerful? Do you still think it is your government?

There is something wrong about democracy as we practise it – the self same democracy that our governments seem intent on exporting elsewhere. Better than oppressive autocracies and theocracies, you might say. Sure, but without being a moral relativist, is that enough? For, by presupposing to be the most legitimate means for the transfer of power, and never questioning the source of that legitimacy, even democracy stifles dissent within and debates outside its own realms.A person who chooses to abstain, or cast a blank vote, is accused of having committed an outright offence, a sin, against the unchallenged reign of democratic principles, and therefore excluded from political discourse. If you want to challenge the status quo, the argument goes, you have to earn the right to do so, and within democracy. Form, join or support a party, stand for or vote in elections, win, and then, with the mandate, effect reform. By just abstaining or spoiling your votes, you're just wasting an opportunity, and therefore are apathetic, reckless and irresponsible. With us or against us. Sounds familiar?Totalitarian democracy, therefore, is by no means an oxymoron.

With the general elections coming up, and political and ideological differences between parties becoming indiscernible, we struggle to find someone who comes close to representing our individual philosophies. More often than not, every party embodies two or more principles we feel are fundamentally incompatible. Quietism is not exactly welcome, and may even be counterproductive. Those of us who still want to engage with the democratic process, are, of course, not allowed to say: we don't like any of the parties, and short of a political rebirth, none of the parties are welcome. A poll by Mori in 2001 showed that more than 30% of voters would turn out to vote if the ballot had "none of the above" as an option, which has prompted Steve of Stevenage to form a party called No Candidate Deserves My Vote. Which in turn begs the question of whether it is sensible to attribute low turnouts merely to voter apathy. Disillusionment, after all, is not the same as indifference.

Where cynicism and dissatisfaction infect the bodypolitik, and self-serving hunger for long-term power motivates politicians, the grounds are fertile both for the roots of widespread intolerance, and for the birth of a revolution. And it may well be to our advantage if we choose the latter. Thankfully, it can be achieved quite easily, and with devastating results. José Saramago shows us how.

In Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (Essay on Lucidity, or Seeing), the supposed sequel to his much misunderstood bestseller Ensaio sobre a Cegueira ([Essay on] Blindness), Saramago imagines a cosmopolitan city where the inhabitants become disaffected with the unwillingness of the political parties to engage with them. So, in ways unknown, the citizens collectively decide to actuate a silent revolution that would force politicians to take note – by casting blank votes, not once, but twice. Of course, blank votes are normally considered spoilt, as is the case in the UK, and therefore are usually not included when deciding upon the majority, and let's face it, it is the majority that counts. However, what if more than 80% of the populace, with an exceptionally high turnout, decide to vote blank? How could the politicians, and indeed the world, ignore it?It would be easy, and wrong, to dismiss this as a mere political fable. After all, this has not happened at any time in the history of world democracy. But, done right, it may be our best weapon to reform democracy within the rigid conditions it imposes. (That is to say, blank votes should have sufficient majority as to not give

disproportional representation to any party, especially hostile ones like the BNP and Ukip.)

For, disillusioned as the population may be, blank votes as opposed to outright abstention illustrate a continued, if sceptical, willingness to engage with the democratic process in its own current terms. It forces the politicians out of the apparent insouciance which characterises their actions when running the government, be it on local issues such as ID cards and ministerial conduct to international issues like genocide and war in foreign territories. It further makes it possible for us to re-examine the fragile foundations of representative democracy, and our Hobbesian willingness to enter into an unequal, and often unfair, contract with the government.

Above all, of course, it is the only way to scrutinise if indeed it is the demos that is at the heart of a democracy, or if democracy is nothing more than a convenient myth to confer an illusion of absolutism to an arbitrary and cunning political game of power transfer. If the former, it would bring politicians to a halt; if the latter, it might well bring democracy to a halt. Either way, we bring forth a much needed revolution.

As an eligible voter, I intend to cast a blank vote. Perhaps, thanks to the interconnecting presence of the web, and social networking sites, we may be able to cast blank votes in sufficiently high numbers. I would strongly urge the readers to consider it.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/17/blank-votes-reform-democracy

With a general election coming up in 2015, I increasingly meet British people who are pessimistic about their options for election to Government. Our recent history has experienced 13 years of New Labour, characterised by unabashed fawning towards the United States, and which led to this country starting an illegal war with Iraq, the rationale for which was based on a string of lies.

The Conservatives, together with their Lib Dem coalition partners, have decided that the economic problems of the country is the fault of those with the least in society, and more specifically benefit claimants. Emergency legislation has been rushed through Parliament to gain access to our communications data, as the European Courts ruled its collection illegal. And the present Government is in negotiation to establish a free trade agreement between the US and the EU, which will take more power from the people and hand it to the corporations.

Of the other candidates that will stand for election, no party offers any hope that they will put the people first and govern without misdeed and manipulation. A few people maybe fortunate to abide in a constituency where a principled independent will stand, but the majority will not have that choice. For them, the system is bankrupt and it is imperative that the “none of the above” option is given serious consideration and equal billing at the ballot box.

In contrast to rejected and spoilt votes, “none of the above” or the blank vote is counted at official referendums. It is not clear, however, if they are all counted, reported and published in all constituencies. I am seeking information on a number of related questions. Given your expertise in psephology, I decided to seek your help to find out the answers to some questions.

Who has the authority to decide if blank votes are counted? What are the criteria for making that decision?

Who has the authority to decide if the blank vote count is published? What are the criteria for making that decision?

Are the rules equally applicable in every constituency?

Is it possible to find out the blank vote count in previous elections? Has that information been published?

What is the correct way to register a blank vote?

Is it possible to intentionally register a vote for none of the given candidates (a blank vote) in a UK general election, and for that vote to be counted?

What percentage of blank votes must be recorded before they are announced and published?

Hi Gloria,

How's your week been? I decided to cut the working week short and have a day off - my best decision of the week so far.

So, now, having given this project some thought, I thought I could contact the Electoral Commission to ask some basic questions about voting. I spent a little while researching information on their website and came to the conclusion that "blank votes" (ie. not putting a mark on the ballot sheet) is counted only as a rejected vote during a general election. This would contradict the information provided by blankvote.org and would not serve our purpose.

What we want, I think, is for those who are not content with the candidates put forward for election to Parliament, to have their vote recognised, counted and published. That statement would imply acceptance of the democratic process but dissatisfaction with the candidates put forward, and principally Political Parties. But some questions we need to think about are: What about independent candidates? For example, would you be happy to vote for George Galloway? What about a party of George Galloways? If you are dissatisfied with the candidates, why don’t you stand for election? Or is it the democratic system that is bankrupt? Is it a system that provides a semblance of choice, but in reality there is no real choice? I am not clear on what my thoughts are on this, but I do think it is important we can articulate the issues.

The Electoral Commission's website (http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/) has much information on previous elections and I think should be our first port of call. I could not find a telephone number but their website does accept enquiries. I have drawn up a couple of questions that I thought could get us on our way. They are:

Is it possible to intentionally register a vote for none of the given candidates (a blank vote) in a UK general election, and for that vote to be counted and not rejected?

What percentage of blank votes must be recorded before they are announced and published?

Next steps would be dependent on the response to these questions. If the general response is positive, it will simply be a case of disseminating the information. However, if the response is uninformative or generally negative, we will need to think again about what it will take it achieve the outcome we seek.

Do let me know what you think, at your leisure. I think it would be really useful to meet up for a good relaxed chat, if and when you have the time – please don’t feel obliged. Weekends are best for me (it’s just unhurried) but can also meet on weekday evenings. My mobile number is 07859 886946. I shall give you a call however, over the weekend.

All the best,

Barima

----- Forwarded Message -----From: Mark Nyack <MNyack@electoralcommission.org.uk>To: "'Barimaasante@btinternet.com'" <Barimaasante@btinternet.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 12:27 PMSubject: Barima Asante - Other - 14-10-14

Dear Barima Asante Thank you for your email to the Electoral Commission.  It is possible for an elector to post a blank ballot paper into the ballot box, however, this ballot paper would be treated as a doubtful ballot paper and not included as a vote towards a candidate. When the result of an election is announced after the count the number of doubtful ballot papers are also stated.  Kind regards Mark Nyack  Communications Officer Public InformationThe Electoral Commission3 Bunhill RowLondon EC1Y 8YZTel: 020 7271 0728Fax: 020 7271 0505www.electoralcommission.org.ukwww.aboutmyvote.co.uk