In electoral systems which use ranked voting, a donkey vote is a cast ballot where the voter ranks the candidates based on the order they appear on the ballot itself. The voter that votes in this manner is referred to as a donkey voter. Donkey votes may occur for several reasons, including voter apathy, protest voting, simplicity on how-to-vote cards, the complexity of the voting system, or voter ignorance of the voting system rules. Alternatively, what appears as a donkey vote may in fact be a genuine representation of a voter's preferences.