heartattack

There has been enough said and written about the current crop of criminals politicians we have. A lot of us educated ones feel no one is deserving enough to be voted for. So we, of course, abstain from voting and get a (false) satisfaction that we, at least, did not partake in the election of a rodent.

But of course, by not voting, we are in a way helping the most evil of the evils. Because any vote FOR a competing candidate is a vote against the most evil one. That’s how the math works.

But sometimes, I don’t blame these people; thinking about the upcoming elections, I often ask myself who among the bunch of jokers we have as candidates do I want to vote for. Well, I’m always without an answer. One thing I know for certain, however, is who I do not want to lead this country – The blob of shit called Mayawati … a woman who’s convoy contains 36 cars, who spends millions on her statues around the capital, and has a Nazi salute for a greeting. More on the bitch in another post maybe..

So the only thing that motivates me to go to vote is to prevent her (that’s mighty polite of me to use ‘her’ to refer to Mayawati, ‘it’ is a better article) from winning.

But then, who among the competing candidates do I vote for? Logic says her toughest competitor. But that may not be easy for the common man to determine. If let’s say 100,000 of us vote for, say Congress, with the sole purpose of defeating Mayafatty, and eventually fatty wins by 90,000 votes with Samajwadi Party at #2, the 100,000 votes of ours have been wasted.

It is therefore, I suggest that the right to elect must be complimented by the right to reject. As a voter, I should be allowed to vote FOR a candidate, or vote AGAINST one. Voting against a candidate would mean – “I don’t care who wins as long as it’s not him/her.”

So how do we decide the winner in such an election? Simple.

Case 1: If there is at least one candidate that has a net positive number of votes (i.e. FOR Votes – AGAINST votes) – The winner is the candidate with the highest net number of votes.

Case 2: If no candidate has a net positive number of votes – There is no winner. The seat is considered void and not included in the final counting of the seats. This is because we can’t let a net negative candidate represent us. It is better to be not represeneted than to be represented by a pig in whites whose participation in the house will bring more harm than good. 

Of course, what if there are too many of such void constituencies? Of course, there should be a tolerance level set. So if, say more than 1/3rds of our 500 odd seats are void, then elections would have to be reheld countrywide (you cannot have re-elections in just these void constituencies as voters are likely to be influenced by the results of the other constituencies). Furthermore, the rejected candidates in the void constituencies must not be allowed to stand for elections from the same constituency for the re-election to give the voters new choices.

Why I think the right to reject is better for democracy?

• People who abstained from voting for the lack of a deserving candidate can now participate in the democratic process.
• Void seats will keep away more evil people from the parliament than the current system does. Agreed it would raise the chances of a hung election which is a costly prospect, but the cost of a bad government is a lot higher.
• It would not require of the minorities to unite and decide on a common candidate to defeat an opressive incumbent. The minority groups can, independently, fight the incumbent by rejection.
• Questionable practices like bribing the voters, or inflammatory statements against a particular group would get their due in the voting process.

Obviously, cynics are quick to argue that our democratic process does people to choose to go to the voting venue and not vote for anyone. True, but it’s not enough because our electorate system does not consider the % of people who voted. In fact, this ‘going to the voting booth but not voting’ compliments the right to reject very well. If the net number of people who do not vote for anyone is higher than the highest net positive candidate, the seat should be void.

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So what do you think? I know the right to reject will not fix everything, but it does fix a lot. Keeping the bad guys out is as important as letting the good ones in ..! So until that happens, I hope that some political party puts up a plant for elections. At least, when I vote for it, I know it’ll do no harm ..