In the comments under every post—mine and pretty much everyone else’s—about what people should do in the March 18 “election,” there are always people suggesting that you should go to the polling station, but spoil your ballot.
They cite various calculations in support of this idea. Mathematical “proofs” along the lines of, “if 55% of voters show up and spoil their ballots, then...” And so on.
I’m going to show you one image and two graphs. That should settle the matter completely for any reasonable person.
I talked about this in detail on air yesterday, but I thought it deserved a separate post.
As far as I can tell, everyone pushing ballot-spoiling falls into two groups:
- 95% are decent people who simply don’t understand. They don’t know the numbers and haven’t followed the history of voting. I hope this image will help them.
- 5% are crooks. They know the numbers, but keep quiet about them, because all their demagoguery and speculation falls apart the moment we look at the image. So I suggest we stop arguing with them and just show it.
In blue: the winner’s percentage in every presidential election in the Russian Federation since 1996.
In red: the percentage of spoiled ballots.
As you can see, over 20 years there have been all kinds of elections: not very fair and completely unfair; highly competitive and not competitive at all; with one round or two; with the “against all” option (a former ballot line allowing voters to reject all candidates) and without it. In some elections, people were urged to spoil their ballots; in others, they were not.
And all these elections have one thing in common: VOTERS DO NOT WANT TO SPOIL THEIR BALLOTS.
Over 20 years, the highest figure was 1.43%. And I assure you, that’s just grandmothers who forgot their glasses and, with shaking hands, marked too many boxes.
You can persuade 2% of people to spoil their ballots. Maybe 3–4%. But to larger groups, this strategy seems utterly illogical, irrational, and just plain stupid.
In Russia, the red graph will never jump above 10%. It goes against the common sense of people of every political persuasion.
Go there specifically just to spoil it?!
If you came to the polling station, that means the ballot has value and meaning. You recognize the election. You recognize the procedure. So do with it what you’re supposed to do.
If you don’t recognize the election, then that piece of paper isn’t really a ballot at all. Want to scribble on a sheet of paper and ruin it? Then tear a page of graph paper out of a notebook at home and scribble on that.
That is exactly how the average normal person thinks, and they are absolutely right.
We will never, ever persuade any significant number of voters to spoil their ballots. That’s it. Full stop. Case closed. Don’t waste your time on silly discussions of hypothetical scenarios. There is real life and the experience it gives us—that’s what is worth discussing.
Well, I suppose situations are possible like this: 450 districts. In 350 of them, our candidates are allowed to run, and we really need to get people out to vote. So we put out the call: if you live where there is a candidate, come and vote. If there is no candidate, come and spoil your ballot.
Not very convincing, but theoretically possible. In any case, it’s an abstraction that does not apply to a presidential election, where the winner takes all.
For the specific 2018 presidential election, the best and only strategy is: a) a boycott, b) active campaigning for a boycott, and c) refusal to recognize either the procedure or the results.
That is exactly what we call a “voters’ strike.”
If you agree with this logic and are able to understand what those two graphs in the image actually mean, help me get these simple points across to everyone else.
And come to the rally on Sunday. If you don’t, Russia will never have normal elections.