[LMB] OT: Voting was all-purpose open letter

[alayne at twobikes.ottawa.on.ca]

At least in Canada, one can explicitly refuse one's vote. You receive your 
ballot paper and then hand it back unmarked and request that the deputy 
returning officer mark it as "refused" (there's a special envelope for 
these papers). The refused ballots are noted separately.

I've never actually done this, because there's always been a candidate I 
preferred (or at least one I disliked more).

If you really feel the choice is untenable, another possibility, of 
course, is to run yourself or to encourage another person to run as an 
independent. My husband did that in the last city elections to ensure a 
content, and on a barebones, last-minute campaign, got 20% of the vote.

Alayne

On Tue, 6 Nov 2007, queenortart wrote:
> > Interestingly, with the advent of computerised voting it is becoming
> > almost impossible to register an informal vote - you have to choose
> > someone on the screen or you can't finish. I guess you could just go
> > through the motions but not actually touch the screen at all.
> 
> 
> I am concerned that once computerised voting comes in that they will make it
> impossible to spoil your ballot paper, which is what I've done for about the
> last 15 years of elections.
> 
> It's suprising how long it takes to write "I'm not voting for any of this
> b*****ds, but I still wish to exercise my democratic right to be counted" on
> the ballot paper with a stubby pencil :)
> 
> Sue
> 
> 

-- 
Alayne McGregor
alayne at twobikes.ottawa.on.ca

"Life is a play that doesn't make sense, while a play is life that does." -- Yann Martel