Spoilt vote
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In voting
Voting
Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. It is often found in democracies and republics.- Reasons for voting :...

, a ballot
Ballot
A ballot is a device used to record choices made by voters. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use pre-printed to protect the...

 is considered to be spoilt, spoiled, void, null, informal or stray if it is regarded by the election
Election
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

 authorities to be invalid and thus not included in the tally during vote counting
Vote counting system
There exist various methods through which the ballots cast at an election may be counted, prior to applying a voting system to obtain one or more winners.-Manual counting:Manual counting requires a physical ballot that represents voter intent...

. This may be done accidentally or deliberately. The total number of spoilt votes in a United States election has been called the residual vote.

Types of spoiled vote

Ways of spoiling a ballot include:
  • an undervote
    Undervote
    An undervote occurs when the number of choices selected by a voter in a contest is less thanthe maximum number allowed for that contest or when no selection is made for a singlechoice contest....

    : leaving sections of the ballot blank, or marking nothing at all (though some ballots include an explicit "none of the above
    None of the above
    None of the Above or against all is a ballot option in some jurisdictions or organizations, designed to allow the voter to indicate disapproval of all of the candidates in a voting system...

    " option)
  • completing the ballot in an illogical or unapproved manner, such as:
    • an overvote
      Overvote
      An overvote occurs when one votes for more than the maximum number of selections allowed in a contest. The result is a spoilt vote which is not included in the final tally....

      : casting more than the permitted number of votes, for example, more than one vote in a plurality voting system
      Plurality voting system
      The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...

    • filling a preference ballot
      Preferential voting
      Preferential voting is a type of ballot structure used in several electoral systems in which voters rank candidates in order of relative preference. For example, the voter may select their first choice as '1', their second preference a '2', and so on...

       out of sequence, e.g. 1-2-2-3-4 or 1-2-4-5-6
  • filling the ballot in a manner that makes the voter's decision incomprehensible.
  • physically deforming ballots, especially those counted by machine
  • making marks on the ballot other than those necessary to complete it, where the voter's identity can be ascertained, compromising the secrecy of the ballot


If a voter makes a mistake while completing a ballot, it may be possible to cancel it and start the voting process again. In the United States
Elections in the United States
The United States has a federal government, with elected officials at the federal , state and local levels. On a national level, the head of state, the President, is elected indirectly by the people, through an Electoral College. In modern times, the electors virtually always vote with the popular...

, cancelled physical ballots may be called "spoiled ballots", as distinct from an "invalid vote" which has been cast. In Canada
Elections in Canada
Canada holds elections for several levels of government: nationally , provincially and territorially, and municipally. Elections are also held for self governing First Nations and for many other public and private organizations including corporations and trade unions...

, the same categories are called "rejected ballots" (given back to the deputy returning officer without a mark or otherwise spoilt, so as not to go into the ballot box), and "spoilt ballots" (ballots from inside the box where intent is unclear, the voter can be identified, or the ballot is otherwise incorrectly marked).

In many jurisdictions, if multiple elections or referenda are held simultaneously, then there are separate physical ballots for each, which may be printed on different-colored paper and posted into separate ballot boxes. In the United States, a single physical ballot is often used to record multiple separate votes. In such cases one can distinguish an "invalid ballot", where all votes on the ballot are rendered invalid, from a "partially valid" ballot, with some votes valid and others invalid.

Unintentional spoiling

Voter instruction is intended to minimise or even preclude accidental spoiling of votes. Ballot design can aid or inhibit clarity in an election, resulting in less or more accidental spoiling. Some election officials have discretion to include ballots where the strict criteria for acceptability are not met but the voter's intention is clear. More complicated electoral systems may be more prone to errors. Group voting ticket
Group voting ticket
Group voting tickets are a way to simplify preferential voting, usually in an election held under the single transferable vote or the alternative vote system....

s were introduced in Australia owing to the high number of informal votes cast in single transferable vote
Single transferable vote
The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through preferential voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or...

 elections.

The United States Election Assistance Commission
Election Assistance Commission
The Election Assistance Commission is an independent agency of the United States government created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 . The Commission serves as a national clearinghouse and resource of information regarding election administration...

's survey of the 2006 midterm elections reported undervoting rate of 0.1% in US Senate elections and 1.6% in US House elections; overvotes were much rarer. Some paper-based voting systems and most DRE voting machine
DRE voting machine
A direct-recording electronic voting machine records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter ; that processes data by means of a computer program; and that records voting data and ballot images in memory components...

s can notify voters of under-votes and over-votes. The Help America Vote Act
Help America Vote Act
The Help America Vote Act , or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92-2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. Drafted in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S...

 requires that voters are informed when they have overvoted, unless a paper-ballot voting system is in use.

The percentage of accidentally spoilt votes is lowest when the ballot requires voting for only one candidate. Designs such as the butterfly ballot, which alternate candidates between one side and the other with the place to be marked along the seam of the ballot, can make mistakes and spoiled ballots more likely.

Intentional spoiling

Spoiled votes may be the result of a deliberate act by the voter; some proportion are likely to be protest vote
Protest vote
A protest vote is a vote cast in an election to demonstrate the caster's unhappiness with the choice of candidates or refusal of the current political system...

s, especially in systems where voting is compulsory
Compulsory voting
Compulsory voting is a system in which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day. If an eligible voter does not attend a polling place, he or she may be subject to punitive measures such as fines, community service, or perhaps imprisonment if fines are unpaid...

. Intentionally spoiling someone else's ballot before or during tabulation is a method of election fraud.

The validity of the election may be questioned if there is an unusually high proportion of spoilt votes. However, in countries such as the UK
Elections in the United Kingdom
There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: United Kingdom general elections, elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, elections to the European Parliament, local elections and mayoral elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday...

 where spoilt ballots are counted, some voters will deliberately spoil their ballot paper to show disapproval of the candidates available whilst still taking part in the electoral process. This may include signing or printing the voter's name on the ballot slip. Evidence points that this practice dates back to times when electoral wards were assigned a designated scīrgerefa (Old English) or "sheriff" a royal official responsible for keeping the peace throughout a shire
Shire
A shire is a traditional term for a division of land, found in the United Kingdom and in Australia. In parts of Australia, a shire is an administrative unit, but it is not synonymous with "county" there, which is a land registration unit. Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far...

 or county on behalf of the king and who would pay royalties to those who had shown their support.

In multiple-vote U.S. ballots, "voter roll-off" is calculated by subtracting the number of votes cast for a "down-ballot" office, such as mayor, from the number of votes cast for a "top-of-the-ballot" office, such as president. When the election jurisdiction does not report voter turnout, roll-off can be used as a proxy for residual votes. Some voters may only be interested in voting for the major offices, and not bother filling in the lower positions, resulting in a partially valid ballot.

See also

  • Election fraud
  • Ballot design in the Single Transferable Vote: discusses exhausted votes, which cannot be transferred owing to too few preferences being expressed
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