Protest Vote in Various Countries
In the United States, cartoon and other fictitious characters are typically used as protest votes; as Mickey Mouse is the most well-known and well-recognized character in the United States, his name is frequently selected for this purpose. Other popular selections include Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny.
A similar phenomenon occurs in the parliamentary elections in Finland and Sweden, although Finns and Swedes usually write Donald Duck as a protest vote because in these countries Donald is more famous than Mickey. Other characters, both real and fictional, are used as protest votes too. One theory has it that the reason for boxer/politician Tony Halme's popularity in one of the Finnish elections was because he was being used as a protest vote. Somewhat ironically, this might mean that protest votes actually got someone elected.
Read more about this topic: Protest Vote
Famous quotes containing the words protest, vote and/or countries:
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“It’s usually pointed out that women are not fit for political power, and ought not to be trusted with a vote because they are politically ignorant, socially prejudiced, narrow-minded, and selfish. True enough, but precisely the same is true of men!”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgment of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)