Yes, well I did take it personally. And there is still a huge difference between someone whose name is on the ballot, and a completely fictitious entity put on the paper with the sole aim of fooling the public.Then your mother clearly didn’t fit the description of the sort of behaviour I was referring to did she. You failed to mention she actually wanted to serve on the Council.
Probably more accurate to describe what I am referring to as “Dummy Candidates” (who are also real peoole btw) to avoid confusion/upset however, Paper Candidates are often fielded with no wish to be elected
Paper candidate - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Dummy candidate - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
No need to take it so personally anyway - it was a criticism of the general practice of ‘paper candidacy’ when it is simply to increase the exposure of the Party or a means of taking votes away from genuine Candidates etc that I was making - not a comment on your specific circumstances. Smaller parties (groups like Reform ) get a disproportionate coverage of their campaign messaging by putting a ‘name’ on every ballot - I think it does a disservice to the electorate if, unlike your Mum, those ‘names’ were in name only and weren’t engaging in any other way with the electorate that they are asking votes for - it doesn’t matter if they get 3 votes - that is 3 people who are using their franchise to vote for them because they would like to be represented by them however unlikely that might be.