Meanings of spoilt vote in English

Paddy Smyth reports on how a bizarre spoiled vote saw the final decision made by drawing lot.

The final vote was 52 in favour and 15 against the deal with one spoiled vote.

The result was the low turnout and the high level of spoiled votes.

Returning officers throughout the State reported what they believed were unprecedented numbers of spoiled votes.

Some 820 students voted against the levy, and there were 44 spoiled votes.

The number of spoilt ballot papers in the whole country probably is less than 1 per cent.

To now suggest a spoilt ballot in the general election as a 'tough love' protest against ANC corruption and ineptitude is pointless.

Hurley added that returning officers at the Gloucestershire count had reported unprecedented numbers of spoilt ballot papers, many scrawled with abusive slogans.

The difficulty with a spoilt ballot is that the IEC's mandate is simply to register whether a ballot paper is valid or not valid.

All 313 Conservative MPs voted - with one spoiled ballot recorded.

They would be free to protest with spoiled ballot papers.

Every spoiled ballot or abstention is a vote that could have been given to the opposition.

That means - like any other kind of spoiled ballot - the vote will be ruled "informal".

The conduct of the campaign contributed to the unusually high number of 109,066 spoiled ballot papers.

He maintains that if invalid votes were disallowed he would now be the constituency MP.

Invalid votes totalled 106 and the total valid poll was 39,496.

Following extensive discussions over doubtful ballots, it emerged five invalid votes had been included in the first full count.

The rest cast invalid votes.

At the Uefa vote, there were 28 in favour and 24 against, plus two invalid votes.

There were 111 invalid ballots.

The total valid poll was 1,686,511, with 40,545 invalid ballots.

Close to 30 percent of all voters in that election cast blank or invalid ballots, a situation which generated doubts about the vote's political legitimacy.