WOW

I'm normally not political at all. I hate political conversations, politics, and politicians. I am convinced that none of them really want (or have the capability) to fix all of the problems in our society. They all just pick the issues that THEY see as the biggest problems and fix those, causing OTHER problems to get bigger, which another candidate might see as the one that should have been fixed first.

What I have just realized, thanks to a blog entry from a friend, is about our voting system. I have not done the research but I have heard these statistics many times. Only about half of the US population actually turns out to vote, and roughly half vote Republican and half Democrat, with the occasional vote for an independent party. What I have just realized is that every other time I have heard those statistics, I have been hearing only the STATISTICS. I never focused on the other half of the US that doesn't vote. Why don't they vote??

Well then my train of thought turned back to me. Why didn't I vote in the last election? 1. I had not made the time in my schedule to educate myself about the candidates prior to the election and was unwilling to make an uneducated decision. 2. What little I did know about the candidates made me certain that I did not want any of them to be in a position of leadership over me.

While it is highly likely that a majority of America is just plain stupid and doesn't know enough to vote, I also think that it is possible that there are people out there who don't vote because they don't want any of the candidates to be president. Our ballots could be made so much better if in addition to putting "Kerry, Clinton, Obama, Huckabee, Guiliani, and whoever else wants control" on the ballot, they would also put "Not Kerry, Not Clinton, Not Obama, Not Huckabee, and Not Guiliani" on the ballot. American ballot-makers have accounted for this by allowing us to write in names of people we would like to see in the office for which we are voting, knowing full well that the American public is not coordinated enough for it to actually make a difference. But, if people were allowed to vote AGAINST a candidate, perhaps the statistics researchers would find that we can elect a president not based on the opinions of 25% of the population, but by 50% or 75% of the population.

Granted... adding an option like that to the ballot would cost millions, especially just in advertising. There would have to be a media hype so that the people who don't vote will know they have a new option. Then there would have to be educational seminars for the people who have been voting the old way to learn how to incorporate the new options. Then there would have to be people at the voting stations to tell the people who slept through the educational seminars what to do. Then there would have to be more people just outside the voting booths for the idiots who still don't get it and can't adapt to change (the ones Darwin thinks should have died a long time ago).

Ok so, its not really a feasible plan. But I think that having the option to say on a ballot "I don't want any of these people" would attract more voters. And it would cause problems if 70% of America didn't want anyone to rule them. But at least then, it would actually be the case that "the people have spoken," instead of, "a quarter of the people have spoken."