If you’re going to protest, cast a blank vote, if you abstain you’re just going to end up mixed with the “too lazy to vote” crowd.
Also, having maned voting booths in my own country a couple of times (I expect it’s not all that different in the US) writting stuff in the your ballot paper will just make a vote invalid and nobody will record or even care about you wrote there - maybe 2 or 3 people will see your words there while counting votes, but that’s it.
In the US they’re aggrigated so, if someone really cared, they could see how many people wrote in. It won’t be counted until the votes that actually matter in the election are done being counted though, but it can be used to give insight to political strategists.
If you’re going to protest, cast a blank vote, if you abstain you’re just going to end up mixed with the “too lazy to vote” crowd.
Also, having maned voting booths in my own country a couple of times (I expect it’s not all that different in the US) writting stuff in the your ballot paper will just make a vote invalid and nobody will record or even care about you wrote there - maybe 2 or 3 people will see your words there while counting votes, but that’s it.
In the US they’re aggrigated so, if someone really cared, they could see how many people wrote in. It won’t be counted until the votes that actually matter in the election are done being counted though, but it can be used to give insight to political strategists.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-in_candidate
It’s not exclusive to the US but it’s mostly a US practice.