Lucys Interesting Idea

[olddutch]

“ What we need on every ballot paper in this country is a 'None of the above' box. If 'None of the above' gets the most votes then the election must be re-run with different candidates.” says LucyThomas7 in a recent AB post.

An interesting idea.

Would it work ?
Could it be improved ?
Would our political masters ever allow it ?
Anyone got a better idea ?

[bigfoot3000]

Would it work ? Maybe.
Could it be improved ? Possibly.
Would our political masters ever allow it ? Never!
Anyone got a better idea ? No.

[bibblebub]

What if the same happened again with the second ballot? You'd have to come to a decision sometime.

[bigfoot3000]

bibblebub maybe then there could be a "Neutral Emergency team" to run things momentarily?

[123everton]

It's not a bad idea at all, but, I'd imagine the new candidates would only have to be sourced in the constitutiencies where none of the above was prevalent.
Furthermore, in the constituencies were there was an overall majority then that candidate should remain, otherwise a whole election would have to be re-run because of an issue in the Isle of Wight.
Which would be unfair.

[Kakuro1]

There would never be a second ballot as 'None of the above' would ever win enough votes.

[bigfoot3000]

Kakuro1 maybe we could change that with an aggressive facebook campaign.

[Kakuro1]

How would that work then, bigfoot? How would anybody convince the voters in any constituency, lets say Portsmouth South as an example, that none of the candidates that they can vote for are worth voting for? Do you see a set of people campaigning for others to vote for no-one?

[IggyB]

no of course it wouldn't work - you'd be left without any elected representatives, it would cost a fortune and everyone would get sick of having to go to the polls again.

now proportional representaion would improve things! Its workable and means that every vote matters so we would be better represented.

If you really don't like the people that are standing for MP couldn't you get involved in your local constituency and help choose who are being put forward, then assit in the campaign to get them elected? MORE involvement in politics is the answer to improve things rather than less involvement by voting NO to everything but then not actually doing anything to make things better.

[olddutch]

What about enabling your vote to be used as a Minus Vote against the candidate who is most unacceptable to the voter and your Minus Vote deducted from that candidates positive vote - the same Minus Vote to be also counted and declared in a grand total “none of the above” votes ?

If 'None of the above' did not get the most votes then the degree of unacceptability of a candidate could still work against that candidate.

[scotman]

It is a reasonable idea if coupled with making voting compulsory. Also ban all postal voting.

[modeller]

It wouldn't necessary mean that the whole election had to be run only in that constituency. In which case the parties would have to find new candidates or maybe a rerun could be restricted to independents.

[I.Don No]

another idea............perhaps we could all vote for any candidate other than the sitting MP (I realise that this is impossible is some constituencies) then those people who say they are in parliament to represent us (when we know that most of them are there to represent themselves) would realise who puts them in the house of commons and who can eject them.

Of course, there may be chaos for a while with all the virgin MPs, but, oh the wake up call the career politicians would get!

[olddutch]

To sum up the general feel of ideas so far :-

Basic Idea is doable but needs tweaking/developing

Rerun only in the constituencies where “None of Above” wins

Neutral emergency team to run constituency until outcome of rerun

Aggressive Facebook campaign to get “None of Above” system adopted

Compulsory voting to be adopted

PR to be adopted

“Minus Votes” to really express voters opposition to unacceptable candidates

Only independents in any rerun

Final outcome in any rerun (no further reruns) to keep costs down

******

Any more ideas to develop things to make voting more productive for voters than under the present system?

[Kakuro1]

And there was me, thinking you were at least a little serious about the subject you had raised the thread about! Silly me, you just wanted all the stupidest ideas you could get (bar PR and making voting compulsory, though even there will be some debate as to whether they would help voter apathy).

[olddutch]

Kak

Don’t get upset - just asking for useful ideas (like others have posted above) - have you got any good ideas of your own ?

[rov1200]

As we vote for the MP and not the party then all reference to what party they represent should be left off.

[Kakuro1]

I am sorry olddutch but if you think that LucyThomas' idea is useful/workable, then please give me and others a clue as to how you see it working in reality. Most of the other 'ideas' appear to be based on the premise that the idea would work but without compulsory voting, how would it?

As for the facebook idea, come on! - you have to know that is a non starter, surely?

[modeller]

It used to be like that rov1200 but there were many complaints they didn't then know what that person stood for. There were also problems when the different candidates had the same surname. In local elections where you vote for several candidates and there may be maybe a dozen or more to choose from . How are you going to remember the details of several of them.

[Oneeyedvic]

Not sure what would be achieved by a 'none of the above' box other than lots and lots of reruns costing the country a fortune.

I am generally in favour of compulsory voting - and that way the politicians will need to engage more with the general population.

[modeller]

In Brazil they do have a ' Vote for Nobody ' button.