I say lets vote....

[Nuno]

Yes, I would be embarassed also if we had only 2 candidates for president, one thinking that the Taliban were a rock group and another thinking he invented the Internet... LOL

[Pertti]

What ???

Bill ******* Gates running for president already ???

[Joel]

No, the real problem is not having a candidate that truely represents the working class in this country. The working class is overtaxed, misrepresented, and ignored as a majority.

Joel

[Nuno]

To be honest, the idea here about the USA middle class is that their income and quality of life is so good compared with most countries middle class they really don´t care about politic. They just vote in the most friendly guy or the one that looks like the character in Air Force one

[Joel]

Actually what it boils down to is we vote in the one who we think will hurt us the least, because we all know that politicians will say one thing and then do what the hell they want once elected.

Joel

[Joel]

I say lets vote....

in the upcoming US presidential elections for None of the Above.

Joel

[paulcs]

Registered voters in New York State should take note: you can vote for "none of the above."

It's elegantly simple. When you enter the booth and pull the lever to close the curtain, just vote for the offices you have a candidate preference for, and ignore the rest. If you opt not to make a choice for a candidate for a particular office, you are, in effect, registering a vote for "none of the above." "Nobody" is a candidate for every single office during every single election in New York State. A vote for nobody is tallied the same way a vote for somebody is.

Now, the problem is this isn't very well publicized, and as a result, first time voters will sometimes accidently vote for nobody across the board by entering the booth, closing the curtain with the big lever, and then immediately opening it up again. You don't get a second shot at it until the next election, and it's a sad thing to see.

However, it's an excellent vehicle for a protest vote, and I'm pretty sure it was done by design. I like to think that if it was better publicized, nobody would win an election or two.

Unfortunately, nothing like this exists in California.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[HollyBerri]

Amazing but true: something Joel and I agree about ....

I've been wondering for some time now-- if no one but one person came out to vote, would that one person elect the President, despite the fact that obviously the "will of the people" was different?

It made me sick that I had to take one of such a limited choice, and I resented the way I was manipulated as a voter, and pacified (or rather subdued) by such statements as "If you don't vote you deserve what you get," and "Voting is the only way to make a difference".

Can't say that I saw all that much difference, frankly, either way. Oh yeah, we all had less money under Regan/Bush, and we are seeing more liberal social opinions under Clinton, but it's all just variations on business as usual.

The mega-corps are eating away at our personal, individual lives, the war machine rolls on with few obstacles, and people still starve, in the US and around the world.

Will that change based on whether Gore or Bush gets elected? Not bloody likely.

And in a country where a Black, Spanish, Asian or Native American hasn't a hope of being elected-- not to mention a woman of any race--well, you can forget about the "None of the Above" box, Joel.

But it's a good dream. Tell the children.

---------------------
Holly

[Kaj]

Well, that's what you get for different laws in different states.
I think it's wrong to have different electionforms in different states, since its result affects all states. By removing the NotA-button, the results are false, because the voter in that state has no choice but voting on the candidate that seems to be the best out of two bad things...
I don't know much about politics, let alone those in the US, but I do know what I want.
Fortunately, here in The Netherlands we do have the choice for None of the above, but our system is a bit different from the system in the US.

[HollyBerri]

I loooooove the Dutch

[cjolley]

Holly,
I think what you meant is...
"I love the Dutch."
chuck

[HedsSpaz]

Instead of voting for nobody, I've been wishing for many years, as my first voting oppurtunity approaches, that I could cast anti-votes.

For example, back in the 1992 election when we had Bush, Clinton, and Perot. Clinton received something like around 42% of the vote(thats a random number, all I remember is that it was less than 50%). What that proved to me was that the majority of the people did NOT want Clinton in office.

Thus, if we had a system where you cast a positive, indifferent, or negative vote for EACH canidate, we could not only determine who the people supported, but who they were particularly opposed to.(there are of course huge gaping holes in this brilliant idea of mine, and I know quite well that there is no feasible way to implement it but it's a nice thought)

my 1 cent(can't spare a second one right now )

Ian

[thecurse]

hey don't blame me i voted for bill the cat and opus

seriously i will just be voting against gore because of his wife and her stance on freedoms and book banning and such.

[The Rock]

Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh Canada, my home and native, errr, never mind.

Bart

[Chris B]

Am I the only one here who thinks that the american election (well the campains at least) is one big circus ? I mean.... there is no ideology, no-one dares beeing just a little controversiel, out of fear of rubbing some people the wrong way. It seems that politics have become a little too... well politically correct so to speak.

Any thoughts?