{"id":11332,"date":"2011-09-26T09:15:33","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T13:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=11332"},"modified":"2011-09-26T09:16:19","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T13:16:19","slug":"ontario-election-mechanics-how-to-decline-your-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/09\/26\/ontario-election-mechanics-how-to-decline-your-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario election mechanics: how to decline your ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have as uninspiring a selection of candidates running in your riding as I do, you may feel like there’s no point in voting. You do, however, have an alternative: you can effectively vote for “None of the above” if you decline your ballot<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

     53. An elector who has received a ballot and returns it to the deputy returning officer declining to vote, forfeits the right to vote and the deputy returning officer shall immediately write the word \u201cdeclined\u201d upon the back of the ballot and preserve it to be returned to the returning officer and shall cause an entry to be made in the poll record that the elector declined to vote. R.S.O. 1990, c. E.6, s. 53.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A recent article in the Ottawa Citizen<\/em><\/a> explains why it may matter to publicize the number of declined ballots rather than just lumping declined ballots in with blank or spoiled ones:<\/p>\n

\n

Ontario\u2019s Chief Electoral Officer is neglecting to tell voters about a crucial right to choose \u201cnone of the above\u201d in the upcoming election, says a third-party watchdog.<\/p>\n

The right to decline a ballot is enshrined in Ontario\u2019s election act, says Democracy Watch spokesman Duff Conacher, but is unpublicized by the agency and its head, Greg Essensa.<\/p>\n

Whereas spoiled ballots are rejected and considered cast by \u201cstupid\u201d people who \u201cdon\u2019t know how to mark an \u2018X\u2019 in the box,\u201d says Conacher, declined ballots are interpreted much more clearly.<\/p>\n

They are the product of active, but dissatisfied, voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s assume five per cent of voters are not turning up now because they don\u2019t support the current parties and their platform,\u201d Conacher said in an interview. \u201cIf they did turn out and that was reported on election night, you\u2019re going to see parties fall over themselves to find out what those five per cent want. Right now they don\u2019t because those people stay at home.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, for providing the links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have as uninspiring a selection of candidates running in your riding as I do, you may feel like there’s no point in voting. You do, however, have an alternative: you can effectively vote for “None of the above” if you decline your ballot:      53. An elector who has received a ballot and returns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,53],"tags":[86,188,87],"class_list":["post-11332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-politics","tag-criticism","tag-electionwatch","tag-ontario"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-2WM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11332"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11335,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11332\/revisions\/11335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}