NOTA

Ok, so finally many people are starting to realize that our last (two) selections for president were... shall we say... not ideal.

We've known for a long time that nearly every other official that's been elected has been more interested in corruption than making our town/county/state/country better.

So what to do to fix this?

Well, the ideal thing to do would be to select only qualified individuals for office in the first place and watch them like a hawk. First hint of conflict of interest, we throw the bums out.

Unfortunately, not only is there no way to accomplish this, its unlikely that the method(s) would be adopted even if we could figure out a way to do it.

I've got a different (though probably not new) idea: None Of The Above.

Right now, each of the two parties slaughters a goat, examines the entrails on a new moon and selects the person with the most money as their new "candidate".

Don't like the selection? Then vote for the 3rd party candidate.

Ha ha ha ha. Had you there, didn't I? With a few exceptions, there's really no better than either of the two "primary" choices. Just usually more poorly funded.

So most people give up in frustration and just stay home.

We all know what its like when they hold an election and no one shows. Most voter turn-out rates hover near 25%. But it doesn't have to be that way. What if you didn't like any of the choices and could vote your mind? That's what NOTA would signal: None Of The Above.

If NOTA won the majority, then the parties would be forced to go back to the drawing board. Hopefully, once they were embarrassed by this a few times, we would start to see better offerings.

I'm under no delusion that NOTA will be welcomed by any of the folks involved in administering elections. But if you have the opportunity to vote for a write-in candidate and you don't like the options given, write in "None Of The Above".

And tell your friends. Maybe we can start turning this thing around.