Reply to post: Would an "informal vote" still be possible?

Would an "informal vote" still be possible?

In Australia, voting is compulsory and you have to number the candidates in order of preference. If your first choice is eliminated then you're deemed to have voted for your next choice, and so on. In a (quite likely) situation where most or all of the candidates are so repulsive that you don't want them to get your vote under any circumstances, then you have the option of spoiling your ballot paper (known as "informal voting"). That way, you can stop your vote going to someone you despise, without being fined for not voting. "Informal voting" is not actually illegal, but it's illegal to encourage anyone to do it. In any case, it should be (hopefully) impossible to trace a spoiled ballot paper back to an individual.

This may seem a waste of a vote, but I've several times been in a situation where I could not, with a clear conscience, endorse any of the candidates. Since the number of informal votes is published, it's a good way of telling the candidates that you don't think any of them deserves your vote. I'm worried that this will no longer be possible with electronic voting. Any attempt to vote "none of the above" will be rejected, and you would be fined for not voting. I suspect that there will be some combination of button pushes which would register as an informal vote, but that it would be illegal to tell anyone how to do it.