None of the above

Ever wish you could vote for “none of the above?”

If State Rep. Theodore C. Speliotis has his way, you will.  For the second consecutive session of the Legislature, Rep. Speliotis, a Danvers Democrat, has filed a single sentence bill requiring that each ballot offer “None of the Above” as a voting option.

The none of the above (NOTA) movement has been active for over 30 years and has been tried in a few places around the world.  Spain, Colombia and the Ukraine offer it on their ballots, and some claim a version of NOTA on the Russian ballot in 1991 helped topple the Communist Party stranglehold in the old Soviet Union.

There are several versions of this “vote for nobody” proposal. For instance, Nevada is the only state that has such a law, but it’s purely symbolic. If voters choose NOTA and it outpolls any of the real candidates, the candidate who gets the most votes still wins.

This isn’t the goal of such groups such as Voters for None of the Above, which describes itself as a “non-partisan organization dedicated to voter consent laws.”  In these proposals, there would be real consequences. If voters cast most of their ballots for NOTA then a new election would be required. Nobody wins the first election and everything starts over again.

Similar bills were filed in the Massachusetts Legislature a few years ago.  Sponsored by Democratic Rep. Cleon H. Turner (D-Dennis) on behalf of a constituent, those bills would have required a space on each ballot for “None of the Above; For a New Election.”

If this bill had become law and the NOTA option won in a particular election, a new round of balloting would have to be held 60-80 days after the original election.

The only exception would be for president and vice-president. In that case, those two nationwide candidates getting the most votes in Massachusetts would still win the state, but in all other races where NOTA beats the actual candidates, they would not only lose the election but those candidates would also be prohibited from running in the subsequent election.

The Speliotis bill in its simplicity is silent about what happens if his version of NOTA passes and is implemented. It contains nothing about any consequences if NOTA beats the real candidates.

It’s difficult to tell if this movement is a legitimate means for registering voter sentiments or just a way for angry or disgruntled voters to blow off steam.

Surely, if the Turner bill had passed, Massachusetts elections would be quite different than the ones we know. With a new election looming in a short time frame, candidates would have to scramble to get on the ballot and the compressed 60-80 day campaign would often favor the better known of the new candidates.

On the other hand, to see how a non-binding system of NOTA works, one need look no farther than how the aforementioned Nevada law works.

In the 2012 presidential election, Silver State voters gave Barack Obama the majority over Mitt Romney, with Libertarian Gary Johnson pulling about one percent of the vote.

“None of These Candidates” got just over a half percent, easily outpolling Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode, who received only a third of a percent of the ballots cast.

Like the Speliotis bill, the only consequence was that some minor party candidate will go down in history as not being able to beat “nobody.”

Considering the time, effort and expense that goes into elections, a binding NOTA requiring a second election simply isn’t a sensible option.  Besides, in any election there’s always the choice to leave the space blank, which most assuredly sends a message and doesn’t require any changes to election laws whatsoever.

Posted by Bruce Garlow on May 9, 2013. Filed under Berkshire Beacon Hill Spotlight,Columns,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry