Mexico: Voters Share Their Null Ballots on Twitter
Twitter users in Mexico showed discontent with the political system of the country by participating in the recent Null Vote campaign for the July 5 elections. Following their vote, they took their cellphones and cameras to polling places and photographed their null votes. Opting out of the secrecy of the vote, some Mexican citizens shared their protest ballots through the web.
Although photographing votes is a federal crime to prevent frauds as Mexican newspaper Milenio warned [es], "creative" ballots were shared publicly using the tags #votomx and #anulArte (wordplay on "null" and "art"). However, in Twitcaps -one of the services that helps Twitter to publish photos using microformats for links- is where the mosaic of null votes can be fully appreciated: ballots crossed out, Twitter's icon Failwhale, ballots in support to the satirical campaign of Dr. Mono as promoted by the Bunsen blog [es], several obscene drawings of penises and curse words, and even Shakespeare's allusions scribbled in crayons.
Priscilliana uses the famous Twitter icon Failwhale [es] in her ballot, suggesting what other users call “an Epic fail for the system”:
Image taken from http://twitpic.com/9el5l
Hernandezz voted in favor of Dr. Mono [es], a character from an online comic strip [es] that parodies Mexican political candidates:
Image taken from http://twitpic.com/9f5ww
“Todos con Dr. Mono!!1 (O una prueba de que tengo pésimo pulso)”
Hgsantarriga goes for a straighter message in his ballot, with a figure that resembles a Zapatista rebel:
Image taken from http://twitpic.com/9ekc7
Aquí comienza la revolución.
These null ballots had media coverage in several national newspapers such as Milenio [es], El Universal [es] y Reforma, such as the following published by Jordi of a paper ballot that someone sent to him [es], whose author is unknown yet his message is quickly understood:
Image taken from http://twitpic.com/9ex9j