Protest vote

[2] Protest voting takes a variety of forms and reflects numerous voter motivations, including political apathy.

[3] NOTA voting is proposed as a state-legitimized method of allowing voters to signal discontent, although selecting a "none" option does not always indicate protest.

[2][8] Protest voting organized by political parties or leaders also occurs, but tends to be rare and associated with extreme circumstances.

[5] Votes are blank, null, and spoiled more frequently in areas with high levels of illiteracy or limited language competency.

[4] Spoiled ballots, especially those that have been deliberately defaced or otherwise ruined, are a more reliable indicator of protest votes and of political sophistication.

[1] After the 2002 French presidential election, in which far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen arrived second behind conservative candidate Jacques Chirac, protest vote was named a contributing factor.

In Oklahoma, non-Obama candidates gathered a combined total of 43%, with the highest number of votes going to anti-abortion activist Randall Terry.

In the 2016 West Virginia Democratic primary, favorite son Paul T. Farrell Jr. received 9% of the vote and placed ahead of eventual nominee Hillary Clinton in one county.

[18] During the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries, a significant protest vote movement formed against Biden's support of Israel during the Israel–Hamas war.

In the 2024 Russian presidential election, amid the exclusion of anti-war candidates from challenging incumbent President Vladimir Putin, anti-Putin activists employed the protest voting tactic known as Noon Against Putin, first proposed by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny before his death.

[22] Active protest voting, whether through spoiled or blank ballots, tends to communicate dissatisfaction more effectively than abstention.