Writing "Shit" On A Ballot

"In the run-up to the 8 May 1870 plebiscite on the liberal [French Second] Empire (increasingly appearing to be an oxymoron), orators addressed abstention from voting in terms of a strike.

Eugene Varlin, a workingclass activist,
advocated for the political application
of strikes, such as abstention from voting in a
8 May 1870 national plebiscite in France.
From: Eugene Varlin

Revolutionary republicans argued at the clubs that even the act of casting a 'no' vote was tantamount to both a validation of the Empire's legitimacy in fixing the parameters of political debate and cession to the leadership provided by liberal and moderate opponents of the regime. Instead, revolutionary republicans urged their audiences to spoil their ballots with expressions of protest (e.g., 'long live the '93 constitution,' 'long live the social and democratic republic,' or just simply, 'shit') and thereby engage in the equivalent of a strike against the extant political process." (25) --David A. Shafer, The Paris Commune