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Politics

27th May 2019

Voter writes ‘w*nk’ all over ballot paper, puts ‘not w*nk’ next to Greens, deemed acceptable as a vote

Wil Jones

Democracy in action

Details have emerged of one ballot paper from last week’s European elections that probably sums up a lot of the electorate’s feelings on British right now.

According to the Guardian’s results liveblog, a disputed ballot in Leicester was found that had the word ‘wank’ written next to every candidate – apart from the Green Party representative, next to which was written ‘not wank’.

Chris Williams, an agent for the Green party in the region, told the Guardian that the ballot was finally deemed an acceptable vote for the party.

Williams also told the newspaper that he had seen multiple ballots spoiled with pro-Brexit slogans. He said he had seen messages like  ‘Brexit now’, ‘We need brexit’ and ‘We’ve already voted on this’ – however, these voters had not actually voted for either UKIP or the Brexit Party, and the ballots were not counted.

In an election that saw both major parties take large hits, the UK Green Party had a strong showing, receiving over two million votes and more than doubling their number of MEPs, from three to seven. They even beat the Conservatives to fifth place overall.

Their success was reflected with similar wins for Greens across Europe.