In
voting, a
ballot is considered
spoilt,
spoiled,
void,
null,
informal, or
stray if a law declares or an
election authority determines that it is invalid and thus not included in the
vote count. This may occur accidentally or deliberately. The total number of spoilt votes in a United States election has been called the
residual vote. In Australia, such votes are generally referred to as informal votes, and in Canada they are referred to as rejected votes.