Add a “do-over” choice to the ballot – Andrew Warner
“I think there should be an all these candidates are bad, start over choice,” he said.My initial response was that voting for a third party candidate is similar to saying just that for a lot of rebel voters trying to change the system. Often times, a vote for Nader or Perot is seen as a “protest vote” to the major parties who can’t possibly, try as they might, encapsulate the values of all American voters.
My father, always a staunch realist, told me that’s just not quite the same. A handful of people will vote for these third party candidates as they always do, and barring an incident like 2000, no one will really notice or care.
A “do-over” choice on the other hand, may just better capture the frustration of the average voter. I honestly think it might have a chance to win an election or two. Third party candidates have been our primary way of keeping the two-party system honest, but the “do-over” button would be much more direct and to the point. How embarrassing it would be for the major parties to know they put up two bad enough candidates for the majority of voters to choose the “neither” option.
This is an awesome idea, but do you think that the Big Two would really get the message?