In recent years, after a long period of neglect, invalid ballots have gained relevance and importance, as their shares have increased significantly on a global scale. Both researchers and politicians, whose legitimacy of mandates can be called into question due to the high proportion of invalid ballots, began to pay more attention to them. A voter's decision to cast an invalid ballot can be influenced by many different factors, among which, in addition to institutional and socio-economic factors, we also find political ones. Using the case of the Slovenian local (mayoral) elections of 2018, the influence of some political factors was checked within the framework of the political approach. The analysis showed that the share of invalid ballots is positively affected by political fragmentation, namely when there is only one candidate, and by the share of unrepresented voters after the first round of elections. It was also shown that the share of invalid ballots in the second round, in contrast to the presidential elections, decreases – this happens in the vast majority of municipalities that hold a second round of elections. The thesis is only the third case study of invalid ballots in Slovenia, and it opens several questions for further research.
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