How To Vote For “None of the Above” And Have It Count
I’ve taken a lot of heat over the past several weeks for not having voted in the most recent election. Especially since most of the people I know believe that had I voted it would have been for Romney. However, even those who know I would have voted for Paul as write-in are up-in-arms that I didn’t “do my duty” as a citizen.
Whether or not it’s my duty to vote is debatable at best, though I can’t really find an argument that trumps the fact that voting is the only truly voluntary thing we do that signifies, officially, our consent to the status quo. Everything else, if you think about it, is mostly submission to a group of people with greater firepower than us. Which of course is a complete violation of our Private Property Rights; however; I digress.
What I want to bring up here is this question: Does not voting do anyone any good beyond the personal satisfaction of knowing you stood by your principles and refused to consent to the way things stand now and for the foreseeable future? More importantly, what if not voting actually affected not only the outcome of elections, but could act to force real change to the system? In other words, what if not voting carried just as much positive weight as voting?
How could it, you ask?
Currently, if everyone in the country didn’t vote except for three people, and two of them voted for Candidate A while the other person voted for Candidate B, all of us would prosper (or suffer) under Candidate A. Therefore, the people who didn’t vote really didn’t have any effect on the outcome other than to show their collective distaste for the choice of candidates. In other words, even though all but three people withdrew their consent their governed carried on. And what is that part of that musty old document that says something about “the consent of the governed”?
But! What if, in a given election, the sum of ALL votes cast was required to reach some percentage (say, 85%) of the TOTAL electorate (NOT registered voters) in order for the election to be valid and a winner announced. And, what if, in the event the 85% threshold wasn’t met, then all current candidates would be eliminated, whereby new primaries would be held resulting in a new election consisting of all new candidates? HOLY COW! Now we’re talking about making not voting worth something! Hell, we might even be able to bring the government to a perpetual standstill. Of course, we’d have to live with perpetual campaign ads….. but that’s just one more reason to cut off your cable TV.
This is sounding better and better by the minute.
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