Vote None Of The Above

Over the weekend my mom and I got on the subject of politics. That doesn’t really happen often. Usually if I’m going to chat politics with anyone it’s my dad. It’s not that I don’t think my mom knows anything about politics, it’s just that I think she tends to be more of a follower and less of a thinker. She’s definitely a liberal but she’s more of a follow-the-leader liberal though she doesn’t know it. She scoffed at my grandmother’s follow-the-leader Republicanism but she does tend to say “Well your father thinks…” more than she should where politics are concerned, which is why I prefer to go straight to the source.

Anyway, it’s really not her politics I want to talk about anyway (thought that sort of “follow-the-leader” mentality is a big pet peeve of mine). I want to talk about my politics or at least my point-of-view this year.

At first, at the beginning of the year, I was thinking that this would be a good year to back a third party. In fact, it may still be; I just don’t know if enough dissatisfied Dems and Reps could be convinced to jump their parties ships to do the same. It’s easier to get Independents like myself to vote for third party candidates because we don’t feel party loyalty or guilt and we don’t feel our hands drawn to check off the party candidate on the Diebold machine or the paper ballot. We haven’t been to any of the secret brainwashing meetings where we sold our souls and signed in blood or promised our first borns or anything. So, if we choose to vote Green Party this year, we can do so and walk away relatively unscathed.

I still think that now is the time to think about a third party. I think the days of the Republicans and the Democrats controlling the government have got to end. Obviously they’ve become complacent and they are feeding each other the power rather than doing their jobs — you know, their jobs, right? We elected them to take care of us, protect us, govern us, ensure our safety, provide for us, etc. Mostly they seem to bicker and struggle and fight for power and ignore the people who need help.

However, I think that the general public isn’t ready to consider a third party yet. At least not seriously. That’s the impression I’ve gotten the last few months.

So…where does that leave me? How am I going to vote in November? Well, it turns out that Olympia Snowe is up for re-election. She’s a republican and I was thinking of voting for her actually. I have enjoyed our letter exchanges and she and Susan Collins have been big supporters of the environment and the Katrina victims. However, Snowe has voted the party line consistantly even on issues where she claimed she did not want to vote for the issue — she always followed up in an interview stating that she “held her nose while doing it.” This is inappropriate. If you don’t thing you should vote for something, you don’t vote for it. This is exactly what has been wrong with the Bush Republican Congress.

Also, I made a decision the day the Patriot Act was renewed. I truly and honestly believe that anyone in Congress who voted to renew the Patriot Act should not be re-elected to Congress — that includes Democrats, especially John Kerry. I have begun my own personal campaign to remove the Patriot Act renewers from Congress. I could almost forgive them for voting for it in the first place because of how the Bush Administration manipulated the situation originally, but the renewal was completely different and most of them, like John Kerry, had spoken out against it. They can no longer be trusted to look out for the best interests of American citizens.

My mom thought this was very practical of me…of course she thought my father might agree with me.

Anyway, while I was thinking this over, I couldn’t help but remember the movie Brewster’s Millions with Richard Pryor, where he has to spend a fortune in 30 days to inherit so much more. One of the ways he does this is by running for office in New York, when he starts winning, he drops out and instead starts running the campaign encouraging everyone to vote “None of the Above”.

What would happen if this November 2nd we all spoke out and voted “None of the Above”? Would they get the message that we’re tired of all the crap? We want them to stop playing games and start running the government. We want them to stop thinking just about themselves and their bank accounts and start thinking about our growing lower and middle classes and the number of starving children right here in the United States. We want the to actually keep their campaign promises.

tags: vote, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, politics, Green Party, Patriot Act

5 comments

1. on May 30, 2006 at 3:06 pm

   Tamara said:

   I wish there were a third party, preferably in the middle, but I don’t know when or how that could happen under the current election and campaign finance rules. A middle party would not be liberal enough for me on many issues, but at least it would more accurately reflect the views of the populus and get us out of this right-wing stranglehold.

   I agree with you wholeheartedly about those who voted to renew the Patriot Act.

2. on May 30, 2006 at 3:40 pm

   Andy said:

   There has been recent talk of making voting compulsory in the UK and the general consensus has been that if it were, then there would have to be a ‘None of the above’ option. It’s a great way to register protest without swelling a candidates vote you didnlt really care for.

   I don’t know if this is correct as I have not looked into it, but I am told that Australia has exactly this system in place already.

3. on May 31, 2006 at 4:55 pm

   n. mallory said:

   I heard about that compulsatory thing in Australia. I was contemplating that. If there was a “None of the above” option, I think that would be apropriate.

   I heard an interview with a Congressman on National Public Radio recently whose campaigning to do a kind of lotto with the vote. I missed the beginning so I don’t know if it was just with his state or if it was national. The idea was that the lotto would be held every two years and every time you vote, your name goes in the draw. Something like that.

   My only concern is a fear of having uninformed voters en masse.

   Plus, the polls weren’t prepared for the number of voters who came out to vote in 2004 when we came out in record numbers and we don’t even have what 60% of the population voting? It would probably take us days if we actually all voted. LOL

4. on September 7, 2006 at 9:20 pm

   William H. White said:

   I agree with your suggestion to put “None of the Above” on the ballot. I would like to suggest that you consider the effects of having a Voter Consent ballot option using a BINDIING “None of the Above” at the end of each candidate list. If NOTA gets more votes than any candidate, no one is elected and a by-election, with new candidates, is held.

   All legitimate consent requires the ability to withhold consent. Therefore, the legitimate consent of voters requires they be able to withhold their consent to an election to office, just as they able to withhold their consent when voting on questions. Currently, if all listed candidates for an office are unacceptable to a voter, the voter can not effectively withhold consent.

   This proposal is discussed in some detail at www.nota.org; in addition, a proposed law, which goes into the mechanics in detail, can be found at www.nota.org/massbill

   Sincerely,
   William H. White
   Director, Voters for None of the Above

5. on September 7, 2006 at 9:31 pm

   n. mallory said:

   That’s just the sort of thing I’d like to see.

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