Does the Minister have a breakdown of the spoiled ballot papers? As she will know, having been involved in elections for many years, rejected ballot papers are spoiled for a number of reasons. Sometimes voters do it deliberately, writing “None of the above” or words to that effect—sometimes quite strong words—or deliberately voting for every candidate. Those papers are spoiled not because the voter does not understand but because they reject all the candidates who are standing or for other reasons. Lumping it all together like that does not reflect validly what went on. I gave an example from Wakefield district where less than 1% were rejected for valid reasons of obviously not understanding the way the election system worked.
4.15 pm