"None Of The Above" option on ballots

Should there be a consistent, across the country, in all 50 states and in every province, option for voting "none of the above" on the ballots?

Rather than writing in something outlandish, or not voting at all, what about a recorded, documented vote for NOTA?


NOTA = none of the above for the rest of this thread


Might that strike a chord in our current political system?

I think that would be a great idea...especially the chance to document it.

...on the same note... the topic of the protest vote came up...a few couple drunks ago.
Anywho, the concept that caught me the most was...1 vote for every candidate on the slate.
ex. 5 candidates, then you get 5 votes to disperse as you see fit....
If you choose to put them all on one candidate...then thats your choice.
If you wanted 3 for your favourite...and 2 for the marijuana party...then thats your choice as well.
Then you would decide how much to invest in your protest vote....?

It wouldn't matter.

The media would just compare the electoral college votes and ignore the popular vote as they already do. So aside from those that voted NOTA... nobody else even hear about the results.

That said, I've been wanting an "abstain" vote every time I've ever walked into an election booth. There is generally 1 or 2 acceptable candidates out of every 50 elections. I often find myself voting for the lesser of evils just because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't vote at all and the worse of the shit options won.

Arkmage wrote:

It wouldn't matter.

The media would just compare the electoral college votes and ignore the popular vote as they already do. So aside from those that voted NOTA... nobody else even hear about the results.

That said, I've been wanting an "abstain" vote every time I've ever walked into an election booth. There is generally 1 or 2 acceptable candidates out of every 50 elections. I often find myself voting for the lesser of evils just because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't vote at all and the worse of the shit options won.

I agree it probably wouldnt matter....but measuring dissent gotta mean something.
Popular vote and first one past the post is a big part of the story...but not the whole story...why not record that too?...

It would actually be more appropriate to have a "No Confidence" vote instead of none of the above. It would be a little more cutting to the winner that get's 30% of the popular vote when they see a 25% vote of no confidence.

"No Confidence" vs. NOTA is a semantics thing basically.

The general idea though is to have a consistent and recorded/reported vote count that's not relegated to nut-job status or some fringe element of society.


A way for people who feel they have no voice and no true options to still cast a vote that will be counted.


Many people don't vote because they feel it's futile.

if they could at least band together and have a chance to show in a concrete and recorded way that they are not satisfied with the choices I think it might strike a chord.

If 10 million votes show up as NOTA and one party looses by 2 million votes, what's that say?

10 million people wanted to vote bad enough to drive to the polls to pull the NOTA lever, but hated BOTH the choices.

I think there's a substantial number of people who might use that NOTA option.