Citizens for Blank Votes
Encyclopedia
Citizens for Blank Votes (Ciudadanos En Blanco) is a Spanish political party.
In Spanish
electoral
law
, a distinction is made between valid votes, blank votes (votos en blanco) and null votes. Blank votes are interpreted as correctly executed votes for "none of the above
", and consistently about 2% of votes are blank. Voting "blank" is not the same thing as abstaining, and so it has been argued that blank votes should be recognized as legitimate by apportioning empty seats in representative bodies according to the number of blank votes. Abstainers, the argument continues, exclude themselves from the democratic process and so need not be recognized in this way .
The platform of Ciudadanos En Blanco is that, if elected, their candidates will leave their seats vacant, until such time as the Spanish electoral law is reformed to recognize blank votes in the manner described above.
At that point, the party will have no more reason to exist.
The party's slogan is No votes en blanco, vota a Ciudadanos En Blanco (Do not vote "en blanco", vote for Citizens "En Blanco").
In Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
electoral
Election
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...
law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, a distinction is made between valid votes, blank votes (votos en blanco) and null votes. Blank votes are interpreted as correctly executed votes for "none of the above
None of the above
None of the Above or against all is a ballot option in some jurisdictions or organizations, designed to allow the voter to indicate disapproval of all of the candidates in a voting system...
", and consistently about 2% of votes are blank. Voting "blank" is not the same thing as abstaining, and so it has been argued that blank votes should be recognized as legitimate by apportioning empty seats in representative bodies according to the number of blank votes. Abstainers, the argument continues, exclude themselves from the democratic process and so need not be recognized in this way .
The platform of Ciudadanos En Blanco is that, if elected, their candidates will leave their seats vacant, until such time as the Spanish electoral law is reformed to recognize blank votes in the manner described above.
At that point, the party will have no more reason to exist.
The party's slogan is No votes en blanco, vota a Ciudadanos En Blanco (Do not vote "en blanco", vote for Citizens "En Blanco").