In connection with the recently held election for the EU Parliament, a new electoral reform has been introduced in Denmark, allowing the use of multiple symbols on the ballot. Previously, it was only possible to mark an ‘X’ to cast a valid vote, but now stars, circles, and checkmarks are also accepted. In Sunday’s election, 5965 invalid votes were recorded, which is a decrease of 2693 from the 2019 election. Kasper Møller Hansen, a political scientist at the University of Copenhagen, believes that the decreasing number of invalid votes is due to the new rules. “This does not mean that fewer people are writing ‘Mickey Mouse’ on the ballot. Those who purposely make their votes invalid still exist. However, votes using symbols other than an ‘X’ now count,” stated Hansen.
The new rules were approved by the Danish Parliament in January and came into effect for this election. Previously, only an ‘X’ or a plus sign were allowed, but now it is also acceptable to use a star, circle, checkmark, or a shaded box. The change applies to all types of elections in Denmark, including parliamentary elections, European Parliament elections, municipal and regional elections, as well as various referendums. The bill, proposed by the Ministry of the Interior and Health, aimed to relax the rules for evaluating ballots, which were previously considered unnecessarily strict. The goal was to have more votes considered valid, which seems to have been achieved in the latest EU election.
Although voter turnout this year was lower than in the previous election – 58.2% compared to 66.1% in 2019 – there was also an increase in the number of blank votes. This year, 52,346 voters chose to cast a blank vote, compared to 32,516 in 2019.