hess@fortune.UUCP (Marty Hess) (09/20/84)
<... and a chicken in every garage!>
Well, I've been waiting for some ELSE to make the following suggestion,
but I guess I'll have to do it.
Let me ask you this, are you happy with the choices you're given on
election day? Each year we seem to be faced with a "lesser of two evils"
choice. I find this unsatisfying, don't you?
How about this as an alternative: For every position up for election,
you are given the list of candidates AND ONE OTHER CHOICE: "NONE OF THE ABOVE".
(And I don't want to hear about Sister Mary Boom-Boom either.) If "NONE OF THE
ABOVE" wins the election, we do it over (within some kind of limits), and the
previous candidates are DISALLOWED.
There's a big push this year to get people to go out and vote. I think
people aren't voting because they don't like the choices that they're being
given. You want to see votes? Let people choose who they WANT in office.
I'd really like to see someone pick up the ball on this, and persue it
realistically. There's got to be a way to make something like this work.
This has been an unpaid, political announcement. The opinions
presented above do not represent those of any sane individual, and certainly
have nothing whatsoever to do with the attitudes of anyone around me.
Please continue this discussion in "net.politics".
As usual, flames to /dev/blackhole .
--
Marty Hess Software Engineering - Graphics
UUCP: {sri-unix, amd, hpda, harpo, ihnp4, allegra}!fortune!hess
DDD: Co.: (415) 595-8444 Me direct: (415) 594-2565
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Pkwy, Redwood Shores, CA 94065
P.S. Anyone outside of the USA got any comments on this?zemon@felix.UUCP (Art Zemon) (10/02/84)
Although you cannot really vote for "nobody," you can
vote for yourself as a write-in candidate.
You could also vote for me. :-)
--
-- Art Zemon
FileNet Corp.
...! {decvax, ihnp4, ucbvax} !trwrb!felix!zemonlarryk@tektronix.UUCP (10/05/84)
Or ya cud vote fer None A. Bove.
wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer) (10/09/84)
> Or ya cud vote fer None A. Bove.
This has been possible when voting for Supervisor in San Francisco. There
is a gay group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence whose members
wear nun's habits when they are representing their association. One
of their members, Jack Fertig, has run for Supervisor in the last two
elections. He uses the name "Sister Boom Boom", and lists his occupation
(which also appears on ballots in California) as "Nun of the Above".
Just another example of the colorful political history of S.F.
Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
...Killjoy went that-a-way---> ucbvax!wildbillwmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (10/09/84)
Hmm... This inspires a thought: Given this (realistic?) situation: Postulate a local election in a small community, for an office such as mayor or councilman or the like. There are a couple "official" declared candidates for the office, whose names are on the ballot. There is also a space for a write-in. On election day, most of the voters (over 51%) write in the name "John Johnson" in the write-in space for this office. Now here's the key point: there are MULTIPLE "John Johnson"s living in this town, all qualified for election to this office. None of them has campaigned or otherwise indicated that they wanted to be elected on a "write-in" basis. What is the result? I can think of several possibilities: 1) The election is declared void and re-held. However, if none of the "John Johnson"s declare as candidates, the situation will recur indefinitely. 2) All the "John Johnson" votes are held to be for one of them, and he is declared the winner. (But how would the one be determined?) 3) All the "John Johnson" votes are declared invalid, and thrown out. Whichever of the "official" candidates had the most votes wins. 4) Everybody spends the rest of their lives in court over this. Does anybody have any idea what the various state election laws have to say about this situation? I would assume the result would vary from state to state. Comments or discussion? Will Martin
cej@ll1.UUCP (Chuck Jones MMOCS) (10/12/84)
> > Although you cannot really vote for "nobody," you can > vote for yourself as a write-in candidate. > > You could also vote for me. :-) > -- > -- Art Zemon > FileNet Corp. > ...! {decvax, ihnp4, ucbvax} !trwrb!felix!zemon Are you 35 years old? (or older?) I'm not, so I can't vote for myself (although I've thought about it for '92). I'm thinking about writting in my grandfather. (A wise old man, he is. Charles Jares is his name, if you want to vote for somebody's grandfather.) If you gotta' be 35, Chuck Jones age must be an issue ...ihnp4!mgnetp!ll1!cej -- I'll burn that bridge Chuck Jones when I come to it! ...ihnp4!mgnetp!ll1!cej