Every time we have an election, I find that I want to vote against the candidates. The result of this dilemma is that I end up voting for a candidate with whose views I do not agree but who has the best chance of beating the candidate whose views I find the truly odious.

            If I loathe the Democrat and don’t like the Republican, I should be able to vote against the Democrat rather than for the Republican.  For every office on the ballot each voter should have one vote which could be cast either for or against any candidate running for the office.

             The effect of this might very well be that both the Republican and the Democrat had negative vote totals and the Green candidate takes office. This seems to be a good thing to me. It effectively happened here in Alameda when Audie Bock, the Green candidate got elected to the California House. Nobody but the Democrats put a candidate in the field except for the Green Party. The Democrats put up Elihu Harris, the ex-mayor of Oakland and so many people disliked him that the Green Party candidate was elected. Effectively, ‘not Elihu’ was elected.

             I should be able to vote ‘not Elihu’ and subtract one from his total.  That is the idea. Votes can be positive or negative but you only have one vote.

             The result of  ‘not’ votes could prove interesting. In the last election Clinton had already proved himself to be utterly corrupt but who wanted Dole? I voted for Perot. The Republicans blame me for the defeat of Dole, at least on the local conservative talk station KSFO. I could have voted 'not Clinton', however, which might have had the effect of electing Dole.

            Upon reflection I think I would still vote for Perot because I want them to balance the budget and I am not too sure about NAFTA. There you see, my vote was positive but, if there were enough Democrats who could not vote for Clinton because of the sleaze then they could vote 'not Dole' and then there were all those conservative Republicans who could not vote for liberal Dole but could, at least, vote 'not Clinton' and, what do you know, Perot wins the election.

            Just vote NO to politics as usual.