None Of The Above

I think most of us, at one time or another, have looked at a ballot and wanted to be able to check a box that rejected all of the choices we were given. There is no such choice on the general election ballot.

However, on the Presidential primary ballot you can select “none of the above”. There will usually be a choice for ‘uncommitted”, delegates that aren’t aligned with any candidate.

Consider the possibilities if you are still a member of a party, or are allowed by the laws in your state to vote in the Presidential primary election. If several states started sending uncommitted delegates to the convention, the Village would really get upset. The media can’t create controversies or pass along lies about “no one”. They can’t decide who gets talked about, because there is “no one” to talk about. The money people can’t run ads against “no one”.

Imagine the shock of the media conglomerates if it looked like they might have to actually cover a political convention to find out who won.

People who couldn’t afford to mount a primary campaign might actually have a reasonable chance at getting chosen, because it would be retail campaigning again.

There is another honored tradition of Presidential primaries that results in pretty much the same thing – nominating a favorite son/daughter. Usually there is a limit on the number of times a delegation votes for their candidate before being released to change their vote.

Long-time voters have watched the system morph into an insane waste of time and money to eliminate the selection process of a political convention. Maybe it’s time to step back to older traditions to indicate to the people currently in charge of the system that voters don’t like what they have done. Political conventions were once about selecting candidates, not providing media conglomerates with free content.