On Wed, 25 Jun 2014 05:45:42 -0700, whisky-dave wrote:

For "non of the above" there is the option to spoil the ballot.

Was theire such a thing on the vote to join the EEC I'd heard it was
a YES or a NO choice.

What other choices would you like?

There's a box that says "Yes ( )". There's a box that says "No ( )".
There are no other boxes. If you think "Yes", then you tick "Yes ( )". If
you think "No", then you tick "No ( )". That makes it a yes/no choice.

I repeat - what other choices would you like?

The question is "Should we do X? Yes or No?"

There isn't a box for "Well, maybe, but I'm not sure ( )". Nor is there a
box for "Umm, neither, really ( )". Or one for "I'm going to try to make
some kind of ill-thought-out point that nobody will really understand
( )". There does not need to be a box for "Chew ( )", "Drool ( )",
"Scrawl rude and mis-spelled message ( )" or "Attempt to draw a penis
( )" on it. You don't need to be invited to do any of those things. You,
Whisky Dave, just need to sober up for long enough to massage that one
remaining firing synapse into sufficient action to excel yourself and
Just Do It.

So no one ever takes any notice of spoilt papers.

Who said they did?

I wonder what would have happened if terhe were 51% spoilt papers would
that have been seen as a Yes or a NO vote ?

They would have been ignored, and the number of votes cast by grown-ups
would have been counted.