The Party of None

It is by now well known, or at least it should be, that my opinion of the candidates for President of the U.S. is less than stellar. It has been hard for me, and it still is, to find anything positive to say about either of them. Let's face it, they both suck. It quite often is that way when you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. The only reason we have the 2 we have is because they were disliked the least of all those presented for nomination.

Neither of them deserve my vote for President and neither of them are going to get it. No one is. Oh, I'll still vote but it will be a write-in vote and the write-in will line read "None of the Above"

I think ALL ballots in all States should have this as a choice, None of the Above.

See, the way ballots are counted now each candidate is allocated a percentage of the total votes cast. If you don't vote, you don't count. If you don't like either candidate what choice do you really have but to choose the lesser of the two evils, close your eyes, hold your breath and vote for the one you like the least? Sure, You don't feel good about it, kinda feel like you've sold your soul and, unlike primary delegates, none of the candidates paid you for their vote. Cheap bastards any-way!

Scenario:

So, lets say our scenario-election is over. Candidate X get 49% of the votes and Candidate Y gets 51% of the votes. A traditional News media result would look something like this:

• Candidate X = 49%
• Candidate Y = 51%

Now lets say in our little scenario-election the total percentage of registered/eligible voters that voted was 60%. What of the other 40%?

For the sake of simplicity lets say there were 100,000 registered/eligible voters. So our 60% of those eligible registered voters who voted would equal 60,000 votes.

If Candidate X got 49% of the votes cast that would be 29,400 votes

If Candidate Y got 51% that would equal 30'600 votes.

Now, you remember the remainder of those eligible/registered voters who did not vote because they did not like either candidate? Their total uncast votes would equal 40,000 votes. If they were to be counted as "None of the Above" votes who would have the majority? Yup. It's the 40,000 who didn't vote. It would totally change the election results and they would then look something like this:

• Candidate X = 29.4%
• Candidate Y = 30.6%
• None of the Above = 40%

That's a margin that would be considered a landslide! Sadly,they don't count cause in the current scheme they didn't vote. The major parties, with the aide of the media, ignore those that did not vote...IF you don't vote, you don't count remember which is kinda ironic because both parties ALWAYS want everything to count. Yeah. Right.

The result of this little scenario, however unlikely, it's the 40% that are the actual winners. Yet, the person who will actually occupy the position in the White House winner would be Candidate Y. This person would then have to win over and really work hard for and take into consideration the "Party of None" in thier decision making process' and this could possibly present and/or create a dramatic shifts in government policies.

I say we give those who do not like any candidate a choice and have, by default on every states election ballot, the choice of "None of the Above" for President. I think it would be interesting, telling and a far more revealing indicator of voter dissent than any third party loser candidate running. It would allow everyone a true choice, possibly draw more voters to the polls and they would finally count too! And that's where I think things could possibly be very interesting.