How to account for electoral abstention

At the polling station there is a record of the voters of the Census who come to vote. The electoral abstention does not influence the results of an election. Not so the null votes or the blank votes.

Steps to follow:

one

The electoral abstention occurs when a person does not come to exercise their right to vote . Since they are all registered in the census, they can monitor the voters who have gone and have not gone to vote. Although it can be counted, the electoral abstention has no effect on the results of an election nor is it penalized.

two

For a vote to be valid, the ballot must be correctly filled out and entered in the envelope. On the other hand, if as a voter you want to exercise your right to vote you must be registered in the Electoral Census and present your ID or passport. If you are not satisfied with any of the political options that are presented to the elections, you can vote blank . This is done by inserting the envelope into the empty box, without any vote inside.

3

Not all the ballots deposited in an urn are valid in an election. When they have been altered or damaged they are considered invalid votes and they are discarded.

4

Thus, the rest of the votes that could have been made but have not done so (ie, discarding blank votes and null votes) are abstentions: there has been no intention to participate in the democratic process in any way.

5

The problem of abstentionism is that at the moment of interpreting it, there may be many causes, so that the citizen may not see his own reflected in subsequent readings that are made at the media level or by professionals (political scientists, sociologists, etc.). ).

Tips
  • Often the results of abstention (expressed as a percentage) are used as a representative indicator of the democratic functioning of a country.