OTTAWA — Disaffected and angry voters, take note: spoiling your ballot is a crime.

There's no legal way to express disgust for politics via the ballot, whether by scribbling on it, writing obscenities, or drawing pictures.

According to section 167(2)(a) of the Canada Elections Act, "no person shall wilfully alter, deface or destroy a ballot." Conviction could bring a $500 fine or three months in jail -- even though the chances of getting caught are effectively nil.

Nil, that is, unless the spoiler wants to make a show of the protest -- by eating the ballot, for example.

Members of the Edible Ballot Society tried that method in the 2000 election but the trend faded after a number of prosecutions.

Spoiling a ballot in privacy is not much of a protest, suggests Elections Canada spokesman Dana Doiron.

"Nobody gets real satisfaction out of it because nobody knows about it," Doiron said.

"It can't be attributed to the individual because of the secrecy. It just goes unrecorded, unnanounced, unknown. So you've wasted your time going to the poll in the first place."

Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley has mused about introducing some legal method for registering a protest vote, but there have been no concrete proposals.

So what's a disgusted voter to do?

"There are laws against disrupting the conduct of the polls, so you can't go there and shout and scream and stamp your feet," said Doiron.

The best strategy is to become a candidate, or try to find a candidate worthy of support, he said.

But many Canadians are taking the lazy way out and staying home. Rates of voter participation have been declining with every election in recent history.

Elections Canada has tried to counter declining turnout by making it easier for people to vote, both through advance polls and through special mail-in ballots.

In this election it has been easier to vote than ever before, said Doiron. Those wishing to do so could cast a ballot almost any day since the writ was dropped, even before the campaign got seriously under way.

That raises another question: what if a voter changes his or her mind before election day?

Too bad, Doiron said. You can only vote once.

Those convinced that political ethics have never been worse might recall that as recently as the 1950s, politicans were known to offer voters chocolates, bottles of rum or nylon stockings.

That isn't heard of now, says Doiron.

"There were some things that society found semi-acceptable that just are not acceptable now. It's like lighting up a cigarette in a baby's room, it's just not considered any more."

Nor has the result of any Canadian election been disputed, a contrast with recent history in the United States.

In U.S. federal elections, every state has a different voting system; in this country Elections Canada applies the same rules across the country and a single missing ballot must be explained.

That's why you can't eat the ballot.