I spoke to someone candidly yesterday. A former elected official, this person is one of the few Republicans that I would actually work for because they understand that government is not perfect and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each party's approach. I asked this person what they thought about Sarah Palin. The answer was surprising. "What the hell was John McCain thinking?! I USED to respect this man and 10 or 20 years ago he would have made a better President than he could today. Evidence of the fact that he has lost touch with reality is his pick of Palin. My God she is such a moron, has NO experience, and is only hurting his chances." I asked what that means come election day. "I will vote for everything EXCEPT the President / Vice President. The party tracks the "dropped votes" and so me and lot of the party leaders have decided to send a message to the Republican Party by NOT voting for the President at all." I thought that was interesting...
I've been extremely disappointed with McCain this calender year, and am praying that this change isn't permanent or an indication of how he'd conduct himself in the Oval Office. If it is, he's lost my vote. It's sad watching him work "maverick" into every interview multiple times when he has completely surrendered his independent nature to the right wing political machine for the sake of the campaign. Evan
Non-votes are an interesting count, but leaders don't normally pay attention to it. They do pay attention to third party votes, as seen by each of the major parties absorbing a few of the Reform Party's stands, and the Democrats pulling in most of the Green Party's stands. The best thing that you can do is to vote on races that you care about and have a choice, and let the rest fall where they may.
When voting can you just skip a vote like that or do you have to vote on something? Is there a no vote option? Man it has been a while since I was at the polls.
I guess it depends ont he voting method. The only ones I have ever seen are the scan tron types. Those I am sure you could easily just not bubble in anything, unless they have some type of software that scraps the entire ballot to hand count if it is irregular.
You just skip it. A couple of states have None of the Above options, so you can register your disgust, but they don't mean anything. There has been a push in some places to make NOTA a real choice where none on the ballot were eligible to vote again.
Hey on a similar note I was thinking of going L on my House of Rep vote since they might pay more attention to that then me voting for the other guy who has no chance.
I'd vote NOTA in every election if I could. A majority vote for None of the Above would mean voting away the government. Sign me up.
As usual, I will be enforcing my own brand of ‘term limits’ by voting AGAINST every incumbent. I will, of course, be writing in Clutch for President - as we all should, I might add...
