A Protest vote is a vote cast in an election to demonstrate the caster's unhappiness with the choice of candidates or the current political system. It can be formulated in several ways:
Voting for a minority or fringe candidate which has no chance of election. See below
Posting a blank ballot paper.
Spoiling the ballot paper.
Selecting a "None of the Above" option, if one exists.
Some people see refusing to turn out to vote at all as a protest vote, especially in places, like Australia, which have compulsory voting, where not voting is an act of civil disobedience.
Voting for a fringe candidate can result in election/endorsement of people whom the general population would rather not see in that position. e.g. Jean-Marie Le Pen in French presidential election, 2002.
A protestvote, it might be hoped, would encourage those democrats who are troubled by these phenomena to speak out, and assert themselves.
Only if they protest is there any hope of calling the Labour Party home again, to consider the fates of those upon whose backs it rose to office.
But protestvotes are in order in Britain, wherever there are Europeans who see their ideal as one involving greater social freedoms, enhanced human rights, and civilised employment standards; and wherever there are Europeans who put social protection ahead of individual enrichment.
A vote, or a ballot, is an individual's act of voting, by which he or she express support or preference for a certain motion (e.g.
Some people think that whenever votes are recorded in a medium which is invisible to humans, electors lose any possibility to verify how their votes are collected and tallied up to produce the final result, thus they need to have an absolute faith in the accuracy, honesty and security of the whole electoral apparatus.
One common issue, especially in first-past-the-post systems, is that of the protestvote: one might "waste one's vote" on a minor party to send a signal of strong preference for a candidate or party that cannot win, or of intolerance for the "more mainstream" options.
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