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Indeed.
Vote: If you can't decide who to vote for (or against) go up and spoil your ballot. But go.
If for no other reason than you have no right to complain if you don't - you got the government you deserved.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I am against spoilt ballots on principal. Here in Woking the Tory will win, they have since 1950 and it's not about to stop any time soon. But they know who votes and which parties are gaining support. A Green vote here, or UKIP if you're dead from the neck up, is a message that they do not ignore.
A wasted ballot means nothing and is treated as such.
veni bibi saltavi
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I disagree, spoilt ballots are counted, blank ballots should be counted, it is missing ballots that are ignored.
The number of people who were motivated enough to say none of the above is a valuable number.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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I'd agree.
They have made a positive choice to get off their backsides and say "None of these", not just sat there and moaned about it.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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The politico view is that you're not bothered about who represents you. It doesn't really matter to them if 90% spoil their ballot as long as they get the support of the rest. Then the 10% who do vote get treated better.
As a case in point, until the 1980's there was very little direct campaigning aimed at women. Their husbands told them which party to support and they did as they were told. As the independent female vote grew, so the parties started looking at women's issues. The first to really cotton into this was Labour with their Wimmin's Manifestos of the Kinnock years. Now the vote is canvassed for because the parties know it matters.
The same goes for spoilers, little is being done to appeal to them as their is nothing in it for the parties to encourage votes that may, or may not, go in their favour.
[I admit it, I studied Politics and I am an active participant in political life]
veni bibi saltavi
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: and I am an active participant in political life
Does DD know?
He could probably use a spin doctor... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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There has been something of a campaign for a "none of the above" box.
This would send a clear message of how many spoiled ballots are due to a concious decision to not select a candidate on the list, rather than a mistake on the part of the voter.
However it doesn't look like this will be happening any time soon.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Probably because it would encourage people to use it - and politicians wouldn't want that.
Mind you, it'd be fun to work out what would happen...
Joe Smith (conservative) 177
Mike Hunt (labour) 176
Fred Blogs (liberal democrat) 175
None of the above 23,456 I hearby declare that..um...erm...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Ah yes, Mike Hunt from Radio Active.
Although I noticed that Hugh Jarce is not present for the Green party.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I thought it was Hugh Janus that was standing for the greens?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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There's a suggestion that the 'None of the above box' should be worded 'Re-open nominations'.
If that wins then that is what you do, start again and keep going until someone comes up with a candidate or policy people are prepared to buy into.
Of course the country would then probably bankrupt itself paying for endless elections.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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I'd be fine with that, provided an overall "none of the above" vote banned all the previous candidates from standing again. 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: If for no other reason than you have no right to complain if you don't - you got the government you deserved.
That is udder bullshit.
Unelected "technocratic" democracies, or elected, the results appear to be the same. Does it matter who is in the government?
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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That's the point: in a democracy it should matter who is in government!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: That's the point: in a democracy it should matter who is in government!
The fact that "it should" does not mean it does.
In which case pretending that it does is more harmfull than accepting the reality.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: As the young vote has diminished
Sure I read recently that there has been an upturn in younger people registering this year, hopefully enough of them will actually use their vote now they have registered. Social media campaigns seem to be getting most of the credit for the increase.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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Aren't all the world's problems Britain's fault? All the world needs is a political party that finally stops us doing it - whatever it actually is
And free everything for everyone! Yay!
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Kelvin?
That would be about as hot as my interest in supporting those loonies.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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They're going for world domination?
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Member 9082365 wrote: a new Ice Age
How are they going to do this? By creating a nuclear winter?
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Now THIS is freaking AMAZING![^]
How did that tiny robot do that?!?
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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Perhaps, they emulated ants[^].
Of course, amplified.
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Ant-hill inside[^]? 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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V-e-e-e-e-e-r-y s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y. That's how!
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So I took heed of a few CPians idea and put the HDD from my old computer and put it in another I am now using.
Tried to boot in to Safe Mode so I could start Outlook 2013 and copy my contacts to a PST file from the OST.
Bastard things blue screens and reboots. HDD has tested fine using Seatools for DOS 2.23. So base Windows drivers must be very different to not allow Safe Mode to boot.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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