A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call regarding my column in which I stated I sometimes choose not to vote. The caller was simply letting me know that there’s a way to vote in which you can “decline your ballot,” also known as a protest vote. Essentially by doing it, you’re saying that you’re not happy with any of the individuals/parties running, but instead choosing not to vote, it allows you to cast your ballot. Thus, you get are an engaged citizen, but if you’re not happy with your choices it is a way to record that.
In Saskatchewan this is made law through The Elections Act, 1996, under section 80, subsection 3: “If a voter has returned the ballot paper, declining to vote, the deputy returning officer shall immediately write the word ‘declined’ on the ballot paper and shall preserve it to be returned to the returning officer.”
I really like this option and it’s one that I didn’t know we had. It allows you to exercise your right to vote, being counted as someone that’s gone to the polling station, but it does allow you to voice that you’re unhappy with the choices presented to you.
You’re not one of those statistics that they talk about low voter turn-out and was it because people simply didn’t go and vote or was it a protest vote? They also are not spoiled ballots that are just tossed out. They are counted and that information is good information for parties running for government to have. It shows them a better sense of the communities they’re serving.
However, it does seem odd to me that with polls being so secretive that you have to make this show in public as it were by either saying, “I decline,” or by handing the empty ballot back to the deputy returning officer… it would almost make more sense to have a “None of the above” option.
Upon further investigation, however, federally this isn’t law. In fact, across Canada only Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta provincially allow you to “decline your ballot” in this fashion.
Interestingly Russia used to have something similar and in 2004 President Putin had 70 percent voter support, while their option of “Against All” took second place in the standings! In 2006 Russia abolished this option, but it’s quite the interesting statement that a society can make.
In an article from the Ottawa Citizen in 2015, then NDP Democratic reform critic Craig Scott, was quoted as saying, “It clearly is a mechanism for combining a message of being an engaged citizen (willing to come out to vote) while also saying no candidate, and/or their party, has the citizen’s support in a particular election.”
Over 30 years ago two private members’ bills had attempted to garner the support to pass the ability to “decline your ballot,” but neither of them were passed.
I understand it’s not a priority… but I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing that option on a ballot.
