There was a report in the newspaper recently on a bridge in Slovakia being named after Chuck Norris. Apparently local officials had put it to a popular vote, and (at the time of writing) 74% of people had voted to call it the Chuck Norris Bridge, outvoting a local historical figure by a huge margin. On the face of it, this is all highly amusing, but it does emphasize my point that people should not be allowed to vote – on anything – because they’ll just take the piss, or screw it up.
Seriously, it happens every time you let the nation vote. We’ve seen it on American Idol, and we’ve seen it countless times on Dancing With The Stars (I’m still annoyed that they voted off Jennie Garth in Season 5). And in case you’re arguing that a TV contest is not the same as a general election, consider this: 97,500,000 people voted in the American Idol Cook/Archuleta final face-off, compared to the 122,000,000 who voted in the last U.S. presidential election. That’s 4/5 of the people who bothered to vote for President (out of 225,750,000 possible voters) thought it worth voting for American Idol. And they haven’t gotten it right since Kelly Clarkson. Since then it’s been based on popularity not performance or capability. David Cook beat David Archuleta to win American Idol Season 7, garnering 54 million votes. Since then he’s sold ‘only’ 4 million albums. Which shows that people will quite happily vote for something that they don’t really care about that much – or that they care less about once the thrill of the competition has died down and they’re left with the sub-par product that the person they voted for actually delivered.
Which is pretty much what happened with Obama in the last U.S. presidential election. People voted for Obama because it seemed pretty cool to finally get a black president, and they sure as hell wanted a ‘change’ (although Obama never really did articulate exactly what he was going to change, or how that would improve things). But after almost four years, Obama’s support is significantly less than it was at the time of voting. Again, thrill of the competition versus a sub-par product delivery. Maybe people just voted for Obama because they didn’t like the alternative – John McCain. And who can blame them? But just because you don’t like one choice doesn’t mean that you should have to take the other. You’re on a plane. “Chicken or Fish?”. “Um, do you have a vegetarian option?”. “No. Chicken or Fish?” “Neither. I choose to not eat. Even though it’s a 14 hour flight and I specifically requested a vegetarian meal.” See how easy that is? (Although it does get more difficult to stomach with each successive flight – believe me…)
2012 is an election year in the U.S., and the population are being trusted with voting for a President again. And again, we’re seeing the same issues in the primaries. Most of the discussion is not whether Romney or Santorum will make the better President, but which one is worse, so that you can vote for the other by default. It’s not helped by the ludicrous system whereby a party has to effectively wash its own dirty linen in public, and the ‘attack ads’ inherent in that, but most of the electioneering consists of each nominee saying “Hey, that guy’s a complete shit! Vote for me, because I’m not as bad as him!”. Well that’s no way to vote for the position of Leader of the Free World! “It could be worse…” Is that what we’re going for now? Really? This is democracy? I’m sorry, but we shouldn’t have to settle when choosing someone who will have the ability to turn your life around 180 degrees at the drop of a hat.
There needs to be the ability to cast your vote for no-one. And I don’t mean the ability to ‘spoil’ your ballot paper, as although these are tallied and the number of ‘spoiled’ votes announced, they basically get ignored, and only the valid votes are taken into account. But voting for no-one should not be the same as not voting at all. Voting for no-one should be seen as an explicit rejection of the available choices. There needs to be an option at the bottom of every ballot form for the election of a new leader (of anything – national government, local government, judges, etc.) for “None of the above”. Which would effectively indicate “Nope. Don’t like any of these candidates. Get rid of them and come back with some better choices”. Then, if “None of the above” gets more votes than any individual, then none of the nominees gets voted in. It certainly avoids those “best of a bad bunch” leaders who get voted in just because they’re not as intolerable as the rest. If no-one is suitable, vote for no-one, and let no-one lead the country.
“But,” I hear you ask, “how can no-one run the country? Isn’t that anarchy?”. Well I’m glad you asked. Because no, it’s not. Last year, Belgium faced a similar problem. For various reasons to do with their arcane government and voting systems, they were unable to elect a new national government, and spent 541 days without a national leadership. That’s a year and nine months. Did their economy collapse? Did they get invaded by foreign armies, or bombed by terrorists? Did the country devolve into mob rule? No, things ticked along quite happily. Taxes still got paid, chocolate still got made, and Belgium still continued to deliver some world-class bureaucracy.
True, the Belgians’ ability to still function was aided by the fact that in addition to the national government, they have a further five governments (Flemish, French, German, Walloon and Brussels-Capital) they can turn to for guidance, but that’s really no different to the U.S. where in addition to the national government you have (50) state legislatures, or the U.K. where you have county councils. If the ‘higher power’ is absent, the people of power immediately below them pick up the slack. And this ripples all the way down to the people who actually do the work, who still manage to function.
It’s like when your boss goes on vacation. You don’t just stop work (well, I can think of a few people who might take advantage). Sure, there are some weighty decisions that you might leave until their return (hiring and firing people, balancing the corporate plan…) but for the most part you know what needs to be done, and you just get on with it. It would be the same thing without a government. You know that sooner or later you’ll get a government that you actually want, so you defer the big decisions (such as which country to invade next – which may not be a bad thing to defer), but otherwise you just get on with your life.
This presidential election is my first as a U.S. citizen, and therefore my first chance to vote. I have my voter registration card, and I’m damn well going to use it. (Let’s face it, a voter registration card is really a more powerful document than a U.S. passport.) I don’t know who I’m going to vote for (damn that Hillary Clinton for not standing – she’d be the hottest President yet! What?? It’s no less valid than for voting for a person just because they’re black…), but I am going to vote. Unfortunately I think it will be with a sense of disappointment as I, along with the rest of the U.S. people, settle for something less than I actually believe in, and certainly less than this country deserves.
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