General Election 2017: How To Spoil Your Ballot Paper

After manifesto U-turns, celebrity endorsements and car crash interviews, now, at last, it’s time to go to the polls.

Each party has done their best to convince voters that they deserve the keys to 10 Downing Street, but what to do if you’re still not a fan of any of them?

Follow our live coverage of General Election 2017 here.

Well it would be a shame to waste your vote but if all the policy quizzes and tactical voting guides have left you cold and you still want to go to the polling station, there’s one age-old option left: spoil your ballot.

By putting any sort of mark anywhere other than in a single box against a candidate’s name, you will invalidate your ballot paper and it will thus be counted as a spoilt vote.

Voters may choose to scribble things, cross out names, draw on their papers or write on their ballot forms - it’s up to you.

In the 2015 General Election, some even got artistic, although some did end up a little on the X-rated side.

While we encourage you to exercise your democratic right wisely, we’ve rounded up some of the best examples we saw last time round (and a few other elections).

Tell them what you really care about

Make it a little X-rated

Get artistic

Create a new box

Give it to the dog

Use your preferred language

Don’t sugar the pill

Just choose your own candidate - even if they aren’t running

Vote Or Vote None is a campaign to encourage voters to spoil their papers by writing ‘none’ across them.

On their website, they explain: “Even if you are fed up with UK politics… use your vote.

“Either Vote for a candidate who you trust to work hard for things you believe in,
or Vote NONE in protest

“Voting NONE is a positive protest, to say: ‘I believe in democracy, but I do not support any of the candidates. I want better politics in the UK’.”