ELECTORAL Commission NSW staff and scrutineers would have needed poker faces at the weekend as ballot papers bearing obscene language and confronting drawings were counted in the Dubbo electorate.
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Defaced votes made up about 20 per cent of the 957 informal votes for the NSW Legislative Assembly.
Scrutineers have told of "decent" and indecent" amendments to ballot papers.
The former included "I am a fish", "go the bulldogs", "abolish state governments" and "no".
One voter drew an eighth square on the ballot paper, wrote "honesty" next to the square and marked it.
Another voter did much the same, except he or she wrote "not applicable" beside the square.
"Hacksaw McDugan", a martial arts online computer game figure, got someone's vote, as did "Mark Penfold", a name shared by a one-time English soccer player and an actor with major films to his credit.
Most of the "indecent" amendments are not suitable for publication.
A scrutineer told of "lots of drawings" of male genitalia.
One ballot paper was considered "particularly offensive" because candidates were assigned obscene titles, except for one who was called a "loser".