The Race Card

Here’s an idea!

Some people ((Libertarians)) have already proposed a ‘none of the above’ option when voting. Some ((Third parties)) have proposed a tiered voting system which would work sort of like a caucus. I have a better idea!

How about voting against a person?

I mean, a lot of people do this anyway by voting for their opposition, but what if you could go into the voting booth and actually choose to vote against someone? It would count as a negative vote, presumably.

So if we take the 2004 election as an example:

  • Michael Badnarik (Lib.)
  • George Bush (Rep.)
  • David Cobb (Green)
  • John Kerry (Dem.)
  • Ralph Nader (Ind.)
  • Michael Peroutka (Const.)

Instead of going in and voting for your candidate, say Michael Peroutka, you could go in and vote against your least favorite candidate, say Michael Badnarik.

Then, when they tally up the votes, the person with the highest total of net votes would win.

In my example, of course, David Cobb would win because he had the most people vote for him (1) and the fewest people voting against him (100).

And really, wouldn’t it be a bit more honest?

(Prepare for another “I, Rule” post soon)

Some people ((Libertarians)) have already proposed a ‘none of the above’ option when voting. Some ((Third parties)) have proposed a tiered voting system which would work sort of like a caucus. I have a better idea! How about voting against a person? I mean, a lot of people do this anyway by voting for their…

6 Comments

  1. *sigh*, can you imagine?

    I should have voted for him. Me and 50 million other people should have voted for him. Instead I voted for the other guy: Ralph Nader.

    My friends attacked me for it at the time. Saying that a vote for Nader was a vote for Peroutka, but I disagree. I think third parties are the only way to change the system.

  2. I love this idea. Maybe the against vote could be done every year or so we could remove a complete lunatic if the against vote out weighs the vote’s/he got in the first place?

    I really like this simple idea….