by Michael Bettencourt

Created on: April 20, 2008

NONE OF THE ABOVE

It's circus time again as we get closer to the next presidential election. The problem is, fewer and fewer people really care about watching the clowns. People have been made so politically crazed by the tummlers barking for their support and the tupenny-upright character of their appeals. Some propose campaign financing reform, others term limits, still others opt for an independent third party as possible solutions to draining the swamp, but the exorcism needed to rid us of our political demons is just not easy to finger.

Micah Sifry offered a solution back in 1990 that I still thinks makes a lot of sense: ensure that all voters have the option to check "none of the above," or NOTA, when they vote. This idea has been shuttlecocked around for a long time, but Sifry's argument was that an NOTA option covering all elective offices would function as a public veto, something the public doesn't have now. (All a voter can do is vote for someone or abstain; there's no opportunity to actually vote against someone.) NOTA might in fact be just the shot of democracy this great democracy of ours needs.

In practice, in elections where NOTA got more votes than any of the candidates, the process would be rewound and run again according to existing rules for a vacant office. Political parties could nominate candidates however they wanted, provided that those who lost out to the NOTA vote could not be renominated. As Sifry said, "By threatening incumbents and contenders alike, NOTA might well introduce a real choice into elections and force candidates to address the issues seriously."

Obviously it's too late to have a NOTA option for the upcoming primaries and full-scale election. But citizens can start applying pressure to state legislators during the next elections either by a widespread write-in campaign or leaving their ballots blank, followed up with a very public display of just how little faith voters put in the process. And in the interim, while pushing for NOTA legislation, citizens could also work to get rules passed that would give voters both initiative and referendum, as twenty-three states now have. The point is, elections will become more meaningful only if the voters pressure the powers-that-be to change who has the power. But after all, that's what democracy is about: the people, not the image makers and spin masters, determining who governs. And the most immediate way to change the quality of elections is for voters to be able to vote NOTA.

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