Electoral law

The nineteenth entry is voto nulo, and the rendering a reader reaches for first is the one to put down. « A null vote » is not English; « void » belongs to contracts and « invalid » to tickets and to arguments. Britain names the thing after what happened to the paper rather than after its legal standing. The everyday word is « a spoilt ballot »; the returning officer’s word, the one printed in the declaration, is « rejected ballot papers », listed with a reason beside each figure — voting for too many candidates, writing something that would identify the voter, handing in a blank sheet. Two things follow from that. The participle is a British one: we write « spoilt » where American practice has « spoiled », and the same pair runs through « learnt », « burnt » and « dreamt ». And the English phrase reaches further than voto nulo does, because « to spoil your ballot » is something a voter chooses to do — turning up and refusing everybody on the list — so a British report counting « spoilt ballots » may be counting protest as much as clumsiness.