# About conscious abstention from voting



## winegrower

With European elections approaching, once again many of us will be faced with the dilemma of voting or not. In your country, do people tend to believe that conscious abstention (true or blank) either for domestic or for European motives can be a good opportunity to express one’s disagreement or they agree with those who claim that it is a trap that only serves the biggest parties?


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## Frank78

No, I have to strongly disagree. If you do not agree with the european policy of your country vote for some eurosceptical party. Or simply a minor party according to the principle: every incumbent out of office.
The parties (at least in Germany) get money for every vote they get. So think twice if you vote or not.
In Germany there are 32 parties on the ballot. It´s nearly a meter long. A pretty good choice. 

I´m wondering why somebody from the native land of democracy asks such questions.  (just kidding)


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## mirx

In México it is a mandatory right to vote, yet I have never heard of people getting prosecuted for not doing so.

Parties are government funded too, and the bigger they are the more support they get.


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## TimLA

If a member of a legislature abstains from a vote, his or her position is relatively clear
since votes are often recorded as "Yes" "No" "Abstain" "Absent".

But in a general election, how does a single citizen express a position by "abstaining"?

How does anyone know that a person "abstained" for a political purpose?


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## winegrower

Frank78 said:


> I´m wondering why somebody from the native land of democracy asks such questions. (just kidding)


 
Well, I didn't express a personal opinion, I just had my doubts and needed to hear what people in other countries think about this.
On the other hand contemporary Greece is not exactly governed by Pericles, otherwise I would certainly help with my vote to ostracize (exile) some people I know !


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## Nunty

In Israel we vote by putting a slip of paper printed with the symbol of the party into the ballot box. There are also white slips, nothing printed on them, and putting one of them into the ballot box has the effect of raising the total number of votes without supporting one of the parties.

We looked at voting the white slip as an act of civil protest against a lack of choice or two (or more) bad choices.

A few years ago a lot of people were angry because they changed the system for a particular election (don't know if it remained changed), such that a white slip would not be counted in the total. It was perceived as depriving us of a very important civic tool.


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## federicoft

High abstention from voting (or a high number of blank votes) is considered a clear message from the electorate to the political system in Italy, a country that generally has a very high turnout and a strong political consciousness. It occurred on several different occasions in its democratic history, and each time the message of the people was quite clear (one of mistrust and disapproval).


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## amikama

Nunty said:


> In Israel we vote by putting a slip of paper printed with the symbol of the party into the ballot box. There are also white slips, nothing printed on them, and putting one of them into the ballot box has the effect of raising the total number of votes without supporting one of the parties.


Just for clarification, the white slips are not aimed to be used as abstain votes but as spare slips kept for cases in which slips of a certain party are run out. In such a case, the voter writes his/her choice on a blank slip and enters it into the ballot box. White slips (with nothing written on them) are considered as invalid votes and aren't counted separately, so no one really knows how many voters put white slips. Still, white slips are often viewed as 'abstain vote', as Nunty said:


> We looked at voting the white slip as an act of civil protest against a lack of choice or two (or more) bad choices.





> A few years ago a lot of people were angry because they changed the system for a particular election (don't know if it remained changed), such that a white slip would not be counted in the total. It was perceived as depriving us of a very important civic tool.


Sorry, but I don't remember such changes. In all elections in which I voted (since 1996), the rules for blank slips were more or less the same (as I've described above). However, there was a public demand to count the blank slips separately, but as far as I know it resulted in nothing practical.


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## Nunty

I recall the 1996 election as when system changed. I suppose it's possible that I am mistaken and it is only because I felt strongly about that election that I remember that way. I don't want to derail this thread, but I'll investigate and get back to you by PM.


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## Dimcl

winegrower said:


> With European elections approaching, once again many of us will be faced with the dilemma of voting or not. In your country, do people tend to believe that conscious abstention (true or blank) either for domestic or for European motives can be a good opportunity to express one’s disagreement or they agree with those who claim that it is a trap that only serves the biggest parties?


 
In the last provincial election here in British Columbia (a month ago), the voter turnout was the lowest in history. Some people say they didn't vote as a result of apathy and some said that they didn't vote as a protest. The problem with that (as has been pointed out previously), is that the government doesn't know one from the other. And isn't that the point if you are casting an "abstention" vote?

It is pointless to actually spoil a ballot by writing on it your reason for spoiling it, because the spoiled ballots are simply discarded without review. If the "x" isn't in the circle, out it goes without a further look.

I like the idea of a "white slip". At least then, a count could be made of those people who (ostensibly) were casting a protest vote.  I rather suspect, though, that the "white slip votes" would be fewer than the people proclaiming that they didn't vote out of protest.  When push comes to shove (at least here in Canada), apathy and/or ignorance of the importance of voting is generally what keeps people away from the polling stations.


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## jinti

winegrower said:


> In your country, do people tend to believe that conscious abstention (true or blank) either for domestic or for European motives can be a good opportunity to express one’s disagreement or they agree with those who claim that it is a trap that only serves the biggest parties?


Among Conservative Quakers in the US, some vote and some do not.  Others only vote in local elections, but do not participate in national ones.

The reasoning for abstaining varies but usually includes separation from worldly things (including government)... or the fact that we are a peace church and therefore cannot in good conscience vote for commander-in-chief of the armed forces, which is what the president is... or that the would-be voter cannot 100% support any candidate.  So it's not so much an opportunity to express disagreement publicly as it is just something that one's conscience does not permit.

I doubt there are enough of us in any one location to seriously affect the outcome of a race anyway.


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## miguel64086

mirx said:


> In México it is a mandatory right to vote, yet I have never heard of people getting prosecuted for not doing so.
> 
> Parties are government funded too, and the bigger they are the more support they get.



In Chile, the right to vote is a civil duty for all citizens over 18 y/o that have been registered.  Once you register, it is mandatory.

And yes. If you didn't vote, you will need to present a qualified excuse before the police, otherwise you would have to pay a fine or go to jail.

A lot of youth disenchanted with the political class, and because they feel obligated to vote, express their disapproval by voting "blank" or writing stuff on the ballot, nullifying the vote


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## ExMax

In Russia, we had an extra line in ballots, “Against All of Them”. That candidate has won the Parliament elections in some regions…  Now we don’t have the candidate with that name  .  On the other hand, you can feel free to abstain (as a sign of your disagreement.)


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## ernest_

In the Basque Country, where they've got a political party banned for refusing to condemn "terrorist" violence, supporters of said party voted null _en masse_, in the last regional elections. At the end, null votes accounted for some 8,8% of total turnout. Other than this particular instance, null voting and blank voting is very rare. Lately, it seems that the vast majority don't vote at all.


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## Grop

Here in France, while abstention is growing, it is also viewed as poor practice. 

I sometimes don't vote when no option is good to me (which didn't happen on these European elections). French people who care about politics are often really hard to convince I made a rational and informed choice.

Blank votes (no paper in the enveloppe) aren't really counted (no public statistics of them are made available at the end of the election), so doing it is no more of a political action than abstaining. But many people aren't aware of that, so many think blank voting is better than abstaining.


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## SDLX Master

How I wish we could "abstain" from voting. We just can't because voting is mandatory and enforced by the government. 
If you fail to show to vote, your personal ID is not getting a stamp that proves you voted, and unless you pay the government a large fine for not showing, you do not get that stamp. Without it, you will get turned down at banks for any transaction like cashing a check.
Now, when voting, since they forced you to show, you are free to vote for a runner, or vote blank or simply annul your vote by writing a comment or cursing the political candidate you hate the most. Either way, you showed, you got your stamp on your ID and that's all the government enforced. However, when counting the ballot, the percentage of blanks and nulls turns out to be obscenely large, but that is another story.


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## Hitchhiker

When I was at university the Italian students would return home to vote. I think at one time they may have been required by law to vote. I think that changed and it is no longer law but they still feel obliged to vote. They say that not how they vote but if they vote or not is public record. They think if they don't vote that it would be more difficult find work, especially government jobs. In Italy they have, or did have, somewhere around 60 to 100 political parties. To protest an election but to still be on record as having voted they have an expression in Italy called "vote a salami". This is putting a slice of salami meat in the ballot envelop with a blank ballot. For most people that just don't want to bother with voting but still want to be on record as having voted a ballot is just left blank.


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## Gwan

I think most people would view the failure to vote as showing ignorance or apathy rather than informed protest here. In Australia, it's also compulsory to vote, although I don't know if they follow it up. Here, you must legally be registered on the electoral roll (if eligible) but you don't have to vote. Some places allow write-in votes, where you can write in the name of a person you want to vote for. Funnily enough, I don't know whether you can do that NZ - I've always voted for actual parties! The other option if you wanted to protest would be to vote for a 'joke' political party. There are usually one or two each time e.g. people off TV wanting to give themselves a bit of extra publicity. In our last election, apparently 11,000 people (0.51% of voters) voted for a couple of guys off the telly who admitted they had 'no policies'.


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## cycloneviv

Gwan said:


> In Australia, it's also compulsory to vote, although I don't know if they follow it up.




I believe they do—I don't know from personal experience as I have always voted—but the fine for failing to vote is ludicrously low: $20 if it is the first occasion on which you have failed to vote without a valid reason or $50 if it is a repeat offence. It's rather pointless really!


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## Frank78

I don´t think forcing people to vote is an alternative. You still can make the ballot card invalid by choosing 2 parties or writing something on it. Democracy works from bottom to the top not vice versa. If you englighten people about the system and  and encourage them to vote it´s much more useful.


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## federicoft

Hitchhiker said:


> When I was at university the Italian students would return home to vote. I think at one time they may have been required by law to vote. I think that changed and it is no longer law but they still feel obliged to vote. They say that not how they vote but if they vote or not is public record. They think if they don't vote that it would be more difficult find work, especially government jobs.



This was theoretically true in the past, although I doubt the law was actively enforced and that anyone would have had consequences for abstaining from voting. 

Since 1992 vote is no longer compulsory though, not even de iure. Abstention is a perfectly legitimate choice and nobody can be discriminated for that.


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## mirx

cycloneviv said:


> I believe they do—I don't know from personal experience as I have always voted—but the fine for failing to vote is ludicrously low: $20 if it is the first occasion on which you have failed to vote without a valid reason or $50 if it is a repeat offence. It's rather pointless really!


 
And do they have a system to track this down? In México in order to vote people need to be registered and obtain a card, which also serves for identification purposes. A lot of people don't have this card and thus can't vote, ironically it is illegal not to vote but it isn't not to possess a card.


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## JamesM

There is no compulsory voting in the U.S.  Turnout can vary wildly from election to election, depending on the issues and the candidates.  Many people do not vote at all, and of those who do vote, some vote only for those candidates or issues that are of interest to them.

For example, we vote for each judge in our county (a "yes" or "no" vote rather than a contest of any kind) but I have rarely heard of any of them, so I often don't vote for any judges.  I don't know what my vote means in those cases.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Dimcl said:


> It is pointless to actually spoil a ballot by writing on it your reason for spoiling it, because the spoiled ballots are simply discarded without review. If the "x" isn't in the circle, out it goes without a further look.



Unless things have changed recently, this is not the case in Canada.  I used to be a poll clerk, and we had to keep a tally of _all _ballots, including spoiled ones, in every election.  This was submitted at the end of the vote count.


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## Hitchhiker

Chaska Ñawi said:


> Unless things have changed recently, this is not the case in Canada.  I used to be a poll clerk, and we had to keep a tally of _all _ballots, including spoiled ones, in every election.  This was submitted at the end of the vote count.



I believe it's the same in the US. In case of a recount or a contested election result the spoiled ballots are inspected and counted as spoiled (or not) again. There is a count kept of the malfunctioned machine votes too.


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## Gwan

Hitchhiker said:


> I believe it's the same in the US. In case of a recount or a contested election result the spoiled ballots are inspected and counted as spoiled (or not) again. There is a count kept of the malfunctioned machine votes too.


 
Hanging chads, anyone?


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## cycloneviv

mirx said:


> And do they have a system to track this down?



Well, yes because everyone over the age of 18 is legally required to be on the electoral role. When you go to vote, you are crossed off the list. If you're not crossed off the list, the Electoral Commission knows that you have not voted. I'm not sure what the penalty is for _not_ being on the electoral roll and/or not keeping your address up to date but I'm sure there is one. Given the peppercorn fine for failing to vote, it's probably not anything very impressive. 

Despite the low fine, however, turnout to vote in Australia is always very high. I don't think we really see the point in _not_ voting; if I want to protest against the two major parties, I vote for one of the others. If enough people do that, the major parties can get quite a shock, as smaller parties can hold the balance of power. That said, it is still always one of the two major parties that ends up in charge, even if they need to negotiate with smaller parties to get bills passed.


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## elirlandes

Unfortunately, in Ireland voter apathy is rising and it is so widespread that it is generally not viewed badly by people if you do not bother to vote. Perhaps this is not surprising given the paucity of choice we are offered...


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## iskndarbey

JamesM said:


> There is no compulsory voting in the U.S.  Turnout can vary wildly from election to election, depending on the issues and the candidates.  Many people do not vote at all, and of those who do vote, some vote only for those candidates or issues that are of interest to them.
> 
> For example, we vote for each judge in our county (a "yes" or "no" vote rather than a contest of any kind) but I have rarely heard of any of them, so I often don't vote for any judges.  I don't know what my vote means in those cases.



Local judges are usually elected -- if only their name appears, it isn't just a yes or no vote, it's just that nobody has bothered to run against them, which is common in local races. There will still be a space on the ballot to write in your own name, or Mickey Mouse or Elvis, if you prefer.


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## JamesM

iskndarbey said:


> Local judges are usually elected -- if only their name appears, it isn't just a yes or no vote, it's just that nobody has bothered to run against them, which is common in local races. There will still be a space on the ballot to write in your own name, or Mickey Mouse or Elvis, if you prefer.


 
No, I'm afraid this is not true:

http://www.voteforjudges.org/
Judges are elected for a specific term (six years for Circuit Judges and ten years for Appellate and Supreme Court Justices). Once that term expires, judges must run for *retention *in order to retain their judgeship. They do not run against another candidate; they basically run against themselves. A judge running for retention must receive 60 percent of the votes to retain his or her judgeship.


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## Mate

*Moderator note*:

Please don't wander too far from the thread topic and keep the discussion focused on the main questions.

If you decide to discuss something tangential, please open a new thread.

Thank you.


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