It's the same outcome. (8+)

Mark

Well depends of the type of vote
if it's a 1 round election yes
If it's a 2 round elections where anyone who does more that 10% goes onto second round, it does make a difference

Not necessarily. People not voting because they don't want to vote for any given candidate over any of the others voting blank would not affect anything. People not voting despite preferring one given candidate but being too lazy or not interested enough to be bothered to walk to their polling station/register for a postal vote would obviously affect the outcome. A non-voter will not necessarily vote blank if forced to vote. And even if they do vote blank, they've been part of the election process, and the outcome can be known to be representative of people's views. (Whether or not the resulting government is representative is obviously down to the voting system used, and is a whole other kettle of badgers, but with the FPTP system we employ here we'd be certain that each MP was the preferred choice to represent their constituency.)

Not really, because if you spoil the ballot on the first round of a two rounder then you're going to do the same for the second round, non?

Mark

Voting blank isn't spoiling the ballot. Multiple voting on the same form is spoiling the ballot.

Mark

voting blank is part of the voting process. It lowers the score of the candidates (% of votes, not of people entilted to vote)

any scratched/tampered voting ballot counts as blank

Is that what they call it then? Cool, I never knew that.

Mark

my friend votes for Napoleon at each election lol

I'd love a 'None of the above' option over here.

A 'Go F**k Yourselves' would be even better of course

just take any ballot and write it on if you want it's legal and will count as a blank

I'd love to, but I wouldn't get any satisfaction out of that cos nobody else is really doing it, or at least I wouldn't know if they did

go to the opening of the ballot box? in France you're even entitled to count it

See here (Section 3.7). Spoiled papers accounted for 0.3% of the electoral roll in 2005. (Obv. not all deliberate, but it's an indication).

My money is on May 6.

Only because I happen to know our local village hall has been booked for the local elections, and it would be daft and expensive to hold a general at another time...