Do blanks on a ballot say anything
Karen Spilka the beloved Senator from Framingham and Senate boss had 4439, Maria Robinson with no competition got 3620 our of 13,530, Lewis got 812 our of 4228.
As apposed to ballot questions, Q1 1005, Q2 837 and Q3 595. Councilor Jubinville got 5137.
My spin is that voters felt strongly about the ballot questions but by blanking out the others, a point was being made. Or is it some voters just didn't know about the candidates?
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 10:18 AM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
I think it is one issue voters who just don't care about anything else.
Waste of your vote. Your vote is your voice. The majority of voters in a primary choose who appears on the general election ballot. If your candidate did not win in the primary, then sore losers choose not to vote for their options. A democracy is defined as the will of the majority. You may think not voting makes a statement but all it does is show that you are an immature individual who does not like that your side did not win so you say screw to everyone else. A lot of that going on in our country now. Too bad. We are losing site of what this country is all about.
I did not vote for some of the candidates simply because I was in a rush so only did the ballot questions. I bet that is the case in most of the blank ballots
Steph sent this to me, a study from Harvard.
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/csuperti/files/blankasprotest_final.pdf?m=1455298855
So all the voters who blanked out on Spilka, Robinson, Lewis and Jubinville some 14608 are immature? I don't know about that. Rushing through the ballot? I've never heard that one before.
Some interesting statistics Jim and good question. Here are my thoughts. Our rights to vote are just that, our individual rights. If you choose to waste that right by not taking advantage of your opportunity to have your vote count on whatever the question is, whether it is for which of the choices of candidates you think is best, or which side you are on for a ballot question, then so be it. As long as you are fully cognizant of the fact that by not casting a vote you will have no impact at all on who will represent you, then it is your choice. I don’t get why anyone would willingly give up their power that way but if they want to do that then I am not going to fault them for it.
WHY GO TO THE POLLS IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE PRIVILEGE OF VOTING? DO YOU REALLY THINK OUR VETERANS PUT THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE SO YOU COULD CHOOSE TO LEAVE BLANKS ON YOUR BALLOTS? WHY DON’T YOU ASK A VET WHAT HE THINKS OF THAT.
Interesting article on this from that link. Where do you find this stuff?
We had a talk about this blanking results the other day and I wanted (as I've done in the past) to ask what everyone thought of why so many blanks, especially in uncontested races. Even in our all blue town where candidates are given God like reverence. Perhaps I'm over thinking it but I find it fascinating.
I hope you would agree (ALL CAPS) that our armed forces have fought and died for our personal freedoms included in our constitution. Some of those freedoms certainly piss off many but the question was, what do so many blanks mean? Could it not be the only way a voter shows the counters that they are not happy with the choices that are presented? I get what your saying... it's almost sacrilegious to blank out on a ballot but voters are free to exercise any of their rights in the voting both. At least they showed up.. 40 something percent didn't get there at all.
I'd ask you to have a looksee at the Harvard piece... it may shed more light than I could on this blanking issue.
Great article from Harvard. They are the smarty pants so we should listen to what they say
They certainly did their research (as you would expect from Harvard guys) imo. The closet blanketers are not willing to spill their guts as to why yet.. it's to radical. Voting is private anyway.
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