BLANK VOTING

Why would anybody take the trouble to go to the polls, and then not vote for any of the candidates on the list?

Unlike in some countries, voting is not obligatory in Denmark. Nevertheless, it has one of the highest voter participation rates in the world, consistently over 80%. Against that background, you would have thought that blank voting was particularly pointless. But in yesterday's general election, the number of people who blank voted was the highest since the second world war (when people were encouraged to protest against the German occupation).

The figures are still low in the total scheme of things; 29,920 or 0.84% of all votes cast. However, the trend is clearly up. More and more electors think that none of the options are worth voting for, and that is a little bit worrying for the health of Danish democracy.

Walter Blotscher