Talk:Spoiled vote

The term spoiled ballot has a regional meaning. In the United States, it usually refers to a ballot where the voter has noticed a mistake and asks for a replacement. The original is marked as spoiled, set aside, and a new ballot is issued to the voter. At the close of the polls, the total of ballots issued should equal the sum of spoiled ballots plus voted ballots. The term is also used in postal voting for ballots that have been damaged in mailing or otherwise cannot be machine tabulated. On receipt, such a ballot is marked as spoiled and then the canvassing board makes a new ballot to replace it, with all board members agreeing that the markings on the new ballot faithfully indicate the intent of the discernable markings on the original. The above meanings are quite different from the use of the term to refer to overvoting or undervoting in a race, or to protest ballots. I gather that spoiled votes in the British Commonwealth may include overvotes but also include other problems such as faulty ranking on a single-transferrable vote ballot. We need much better disambiguation here before making a merger. Douglas W. Jones (talk) 22:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC)