Last Tuesday, it was rainy and unseasonably cold in New York. I came home from work, changed out of my wet socks and headed back out into the grim weather to my voting spot. When I got there, an ebulliently helpful poll worker offered me a pen. I didn’t need it.

That’s because I voted for no one, leaving my ballot blank. I wanted to join people all over the country in sending President Joe Biden a message: stop the genocide in Gaza.

I was not alone in trekking out into the inhospitable climate to vote for nobody that day. Roughly thirty-nine thousand New York State voters did the same, about 12 percent of primary voters. “Blank” accounted for about a quarter of Brooklyn’s primary votes. About 11 percent of Connecticut’s primary voters voted “uncommitted,” as did an impressive 14.5 percent of Rhode island’s (almost 30 percent in Providence).