Parliament forced to pull graphic voter cartoon

The Danish parliament has withdrawn a €27,000 cartoon video featuring scenes of group sex, oral sex and a non-voter being decapitated that had been aimed at motivating young people to vote in European parliamentary elections.

The cartoon, posted on the parliament’s Facebook and YouTube sites, had led to protests both from politicians and in social media.

The video portrayed a ‘superhero’ named Voteman. First pictured in bed with five women, he then rushes off using dolphins as skis to ensure people vote in the election.

He punches and throws one non-voter into a poll booth and interrupts another couple in bed before throwing them out of the window.

He also rips the head off a young person who says he is going to skip the polls.

The narrator says: “So if you’re not going to vote, don’t try to run, don’t try to hide, because (Voteman) will hunt you down. He will find you and he will make you vote.

“So, what you got to do? You got to vote.”

Chairman of the Danish parliament Mogens Lykketoft wrote in an email to the members of the parliament: “I acknowledge that the parliament as an institution, should be more careful in the future about what we put our name on,”

Lykketoft, told the newspaper Ekstra Bladet: “Many, whose views I deeply respect, found the EU Information Centre’s cartoon to be much more damaging and offensive than it was intended to be and felt it talked down to young people.

“Reactions on social media are sharply divided between those who find it unacceptably lame and those who find it to be crude but acceptable humour that could raise awareness of the election on 25 May. The latter was the intention.”

But not everyone agrees.

“I can’t understand that you would use violence against women, porn, and the handout of I don’t know how many slaps as an argument for people to go and vote,” said Anders Samuelsen, a Liberal Alliance party MP.