Abstentionism, Blank Vote and Invalid Ballot Papers: Evidences from Brazil and E.U.

Abstract

Abstentionism, blank vote and invalid ballots are electoral phenomena that are statistically growing in many Countries but don´t receive much attention and when they do, they are usually treated with a strong negative bias. This article explore this issue and it is divided in three part: In the first part we analyze how the literature currently defines and treats abstentionism, blank vote and invalid ballot. We find out they are usually treated as a single and unique “non-vote area” and we propose a different approach based in a more detailed view, combining methodological individualism and imperfect rationality. In the second part we show the empirical relevance of this three types of electoral outcomes in EU parliamentary elections and in Brazilian presidential ones. In the last part, we notice a negative bias toward these electoral behaviors to which we oppose a different point of view. In this line, at the end, we propose some possible changes in electoral systems in order to better intercept voters will.