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A Legal Name Change Puts 'None of the Above' On Canadian Ballot (foxnews.com)
PolygamousRanchKid writes: The ballot to fill a legislative seat in Canada next month includes none of the above—and it's a real person. Sheldon Bergson, 46, had his name legally changed to Above Znoneofthe and is now a candidate for the Ontario legislature, the CBC reports. The election is Feb. 11. The ballot lists candidates in alphabetical order by surname so his name will be the 10th of the 10 candidates as Znoneofthe Above, according to CBC. One of his opponents is running on the line of the None of The Above Party. Maybe the American folks can learn from their cousins up north? Shouldn't every election have a line for "None of the above"? I can't wait until Little Bobby Tables hits 35.
Brilliant!
#DeleteChrome
Democratic systems can have all sorts of shortcomings. What legitimacy (real!) would he have were he to win?
FTFY
What's more, if it won, the election should be rerun with none of the previous candidates allowed on the new ballot.
Years ago a local radio station was having a contest. They kept broadcasting that "if your name is drawn" you win a trip to Hawaii. I seriously considered legally changing my name to "drawn". The name change fee was around $50.
Shouldn't every election have a line for "None of the above"?
I've never seen a ballot require fields, so yes, every election I vote in functionally has a None of the Above option. I even take that option every time someone's running unopposed.
Why hasn't Canada's Twitter been shutdown already?
Are you fucking serious?
Every ballot should have a "none of the above" option with special rules if "none" wins. If none wins then no one who ran is ever eligible to run again at this level of civic election and none of them are entitled to any rebates, refunds or other campaign support in anyway from the general public purse.
The purpose this none of the above option would be to make sure all candidates engage and encourage voters and don't waste our time.
But ... but that would mean that they have to offer actual content and not just "if you vote for HIM $horrible_thing happens".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm an anarchist and I don't vote. I would vote if I could vote for "none of the above." I think every race should have the option of voting to leave the office vacant for a term so everybody can try it out and see if we like living without that elected official and the pain he or she inflicts on us.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
I was going to do that! I knew I should of patented or copyrighted it!
Yes. R. Eal Serious.
I was doing her sister, T. Otally Serious, but she wanted a commitment...
and I'm not going back to that madhouse!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
this reminds me of the plot to Brewster's Millions, where Brewster is trying to blow as much money as possible on his "none of the above" campaign only to be disappointed by the number of people who were actually voting for HIM
There already is a "none of the above" option for the federal Canadian and provincial, at least in Ontario, elections. After they check your name off the register and go you hand you the ballot you decline (or abstain). This gets counted separately from ballots that are spoiled. I haven't looked up what happens if many people decline to vote because not many know about it so type spoil ballots or vote for the best of the worst. Or you get idiots pulling stunts like this.
I know that in my city you can also decline your ballot. You should also be able to do that in all of the other cities in Ontario since that is where the law is made for voting in municipal elections.
you can't have it both ways.
if one believes in democracy one must make a choice. and when all the available choices are not acceptable to one, one must engage with the process to create one acceptable. that is difficult and time consuming and might fail.
but if one can't be bothered to risk that, or believes it is not worth it, and prefers an easy run away solution like 'none of the above', one is saying democracy as practiced is not worth it. in that case others who engage will make the choice for you . since you prefer to runaway.
As far as I understand, at common law you can go by whatever identity you like as long as it's not for fraudulent purposes. Legally changing your name, on the other hand, requires going in front of a judge and providing some justification. In particular, this change is done for the purpose of gaming the ballot and gaining an unfair advantage, and the judge shouldn't have allowed it.
Has Canada changed this tradition?
As a vote of "No Confidence" invalidates the ability of a government to represent people, I think someone should run by that name and win.
As much as people get frustrated with typical politicians I feel like "None of the Above" requests tend to be a bit vague.
For the US I think Obama fit this mold and turned out pretty well. On the other hand I think Republicans have been searching for "None of the Above" since 2010 and have gone well off the deep end searching for politicians who aren't politicians.
Up here in Canada I actually don't mind our selection of party leaders, the local MPs can sometimes be pretty nutty but the leaders tend to be reasonable people.
I stole this Sig
Personally I can't wait until he's 36. Or what about when he turns 37?! Maybe even 63.
Silly ideas like in the OP come from people who don't actually have an understanding of politics. They have tunnel-vision (though they would deny it up and down), and can only see the world from the perspective of a disenfranchised have-not. As such, they cannot grasp the utter untenability of their proposals, nor do they have an inkling of what the actual consequences would be.
This is an important reason why the world is better off run by aristocrats, even though those same aristocrats are mendacious and disloyal. An evil but competent leader can at least keep the ship sailing, whereas an incompetent leader will sink it immediately, even in the calmest of waters.
I was going to say that a permaban is a bit harsh, but then again, they're politicians. Bring on the permaban!
I Remember the Frank Zappa Nobody for President campaign....
So it would be a silly idea to change my name to KissMyAss....
It's interesting that ballots still list candidates in alphabetical order, despite studies showing that the position of a candidate in the ballot can influence election results (e.g. https://pprg.stanford.edu/wp-c... (PDF) and http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/4...). Our local government elections have been using randomized ballot order for a while now. Voting papers have the candidates in different orders so all candidates appear in all positions. The order any particular voter sees is random. Apparently it's easy enough to implement and it really does help make elections fairer.
Declined votes are separated but no count is kept of them. Spoiled ballots are counted. Easy way to spoil your ballot and not prevent one of the counters to mark it with a pencil lead under the fingernail (yes, it's happened) is to cross them ALL off. Added benefit, no matter who wins, you can tell them you voted for them :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
A guy did this at a little local election near my workplace.
He was an idiot, but changed his name to None of the Above in protest.
Come election time, there was an option for "Of the Above, None". The idiot forgot to check how names were listed on the ballot. It was quite funny.
That was until the next month when the guy came to the school I was working for in the middle of the night and thought it funny to glue up all the locks, including the fire doors.
The reason I was originally aware of him was because he was canvassing parents leaving the school (and it was only a primary school) so vigorously that they made complaints. So he was asked to leave by a member of senior staff. There was a scuffle, and a child was injured. The police came, took him away.
Then he came back a few months later and gummed up all the locks in the middle of the night. The police came again, arrested him and charged him with trespass on a school property and criminal damage.
What do you want in a guy you vote for? Of the above, None.
There's a similar sort of thing in Australian elections, known as an informal vote. Voting is compulsory, but as it's a secret ballot, there's no enforcement of lodging a valid ballot. As such, if you want to do a "none of the above" vote, you show up at the polling station, get your ballot papers and get your name checked off, then put the blank ballot papers into the ballot box.
I believe that UK university student elections have this option, which serves a similar role of expressing a lack of enthusiasm for the options. It doesn't prevent a person from standing again, but if they lost to that vote, they should certainly consider an alternative career.
Hell, why even make it depend on a vote?
I'll change my name to "Page 7" and drive the clerks crazy if it's a short document.
"Now where the hell is page 6?"
Table-ized A.I.
Cthulhu for President 2016 - Vote for the Greater Evil, not the lesser! https://www.facebook.com/photo...
I remember 15-20 years ago he did this first, judge said he couldn't be on ballot.. Points for him to keep at it all these years, Almost makes me want to register to vote... Tho it's largely pointless in Canukistan. All the power is with the PM who can be overridden by the Gov Gen appointed by the Queen!(and HASSSSS used their power not long ago to stop Harper from losing his position).
At local level 1 of dozens in many wards for so few people effects no reduction/change of services...
Line them all up and...
In L. Neil Smiths classic "The Probability Broach", None of the above is always on the ballot. It also won Presidency of the Confederation 3 times.
If "None of the Above" wins, all the other candidates are summarily executed.
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to actually pull this (or something similar) off.
Haha, we don't have a none of the above option, but we can 'write in' whoever name we want for the last option. Mickey Mouse beats Donald Duck every time. mickey mouse always gets the most votes out of people not running for the position.
Declined ballots are counted in Canada, you can even request a count for declined from Elections Canada. In Federal elections all counts are done by hand, some provinces use a machine to quick scan the ballot but also do a hand count as well.
Om, nomnomnom...
I was going to change my name to Write-in Candidate.
Have gnu, will travel.
Several countries allow you to deliver blank votes. These are counted, and are not the same as votes with errors.
The rules for write-ins and strike-outs also vary. If you're allowed to strike out every single person on the ballot, that counts as a vote for the party, but not for any of its candidates.
One of the problems with electronic voting is that it rarely allow for special cases like this, flagging intentional voting as an error, and the people at the polling station has no way of fixing it.
When I really don't want to vote for any listed candidate (using paper absentee ballots), I overvote -- I just vote for everyone for that office. This prevents anyone from altering my ballot before it is counted so it appears I voted for a specific candidate. No, I'm not paranoid.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I'm moving to Canada, running for election, and changing my name to "Free Money".
Who wouldn't vote for free money? People seem to do so every election, I'm just giving them a shortcut.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Plenty of countries use, or have used, these alternatives to plurality voting. There is little evidence that they lead to better government. In fact, there is little evidence that better reflection of the will of the people leads to better government.
There's no evidence that it doesn't.
I'd be willing to bet that plurality countries have higher corruption scores compared with any other electoral system. It's pretty obvious that when only 2 parties can win, they will have both have tinkered with the system to benefit themselves, leaving one which benefits both.
You also get a more divided country, which makes people less open-minded. Democracy suffers again.
Rather than a senator representing the people of California, it would be better to have one senator representing all the nerds, another representing all the construction workers, and yet another representing all the medicare recipients, etc.
Size of the ballot paper would be huge and would be asking too much of voters too.
I've had thoughts about government. One idea I had was to get rid of congress as a law passing body entirely. They're too tied into popularity contests, donations by extremist wealthy people, etc... They could still write laws or something.
Instead, let's go statistical. When a bill is proposed, you pull in around 500 random eligible citizens. Call them a 'specific representational congress' or something. Think of it like jury duty crossed with legislation, and be sure to pay them well so they aren't moaning about losing money. The supporters and detractors of the bill go through the bill with the selected citizens, having a relatively large amount of time to educate them on the benefits and detriments. If anybody can think of a better way to ensure that those selected are well informed on what the bill has in it, I'm open to options.
Then, after all the debating, investigation, etc...They vote. I'm not sure whether majority or super-majority would be better, but with 500 people, you're 95% likely to be within ~4% of how the whole nation would vote - assuming they intensely investigated the bill for that length of time. I feel this would actually be a more accurate result than a nation-wide poll or vote, because we can't afford to have every citizen spend that much time on each vote. Hell, it's the job of senators to do that sort of stuff, and they can't keep up with the amount of proposed legislation today, and thus must trust the 'special interests', aids, and such.
I don't read AC A human right
Size of the ballot paper would be huge and would be asking too much of voters too.
Not really, I'd just read up some stuff, decide on a party, and vote for that party. That party has a list of people to be elected, and depending on how much of the vote they get, that's how many members are elected.
I'd sure like to have somebody in congress who matches me at around 90%, rather than the 60% I normally get as a *best* option.
I don't read AC A human right
.. stupid waste of time.
Here the names for each ballot paper are randomised. Go ahead. Call yourself Ziggy Zed. It does not mean your name will be at the bottom.
A while back an investigation showed that at least 10% of people put in a donkey vote. Just listed 1 to 10 or whatever first box to last. The idea here is that by randomising the name order it evens the field.
What I would like to see is a ballot paper with name order randomised without political party where the vote can use any whole number to vote. Would stop the BS we have right now where people just vote liberal or labor based on the party instead of the person.
Yes, here in Oz we have to vote or be fined $50
Actually, you're confusing federal, provincial and municipal elections. in Canada, the three types of governments (federal, provincial and municipal) have their own election body with their own rules and timing.
Elections Canada runs the federal elections. For this, the rules are set out in law with a paper ballot with circles that you put a simple X or check into. These are almost always hand counted, by law.
The next kind of elections are provincial elections, and those the province has their own election body (e.g., we have Elections BC) who follow provincial rules - how the ballot looks, what is on it, etc. In BC, the ballot is designed to look like the federal ballot on purpose, but in other provinces, it can be held by whatever means they want.
The last is municipal elections and those are generally the biggest and most complex ballots, and those are done by the city you're in, and you select the mayor, city counselors, educational board, etc. and the rules again for them depend on the city or town government. For the places I've lived, it's usually a Scantron type system. but others are valid.
And sometimes, it also means we have three elections in a year - none of this massive voting day thing you Americans have. Sometimes 4, if you had a by-election.
It also means there's a potential for a variety of voting systems - first past the post is common, but each body is independent, so a province could use another system.
And anyhow, this isn't new - I've heard about someone doing this over a decade ago running in the federal election.
That's odd, but I'm Canadian and for some reason I would have sworn the names on each ballot were randomized. Really they should be for fairness. It turns out I'm wrong (no big surprise) - they are alphabetical. I wonder if that fact influences elections at all.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
This isn't actually the first time someone has done this in Canada. I remember round about 20 years or so ago someone used a similar tactic in a federal election. In that case, he used two z's. I think it was in a riding in British Columbia that time.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
There already is a "none of the above" option for the federal Canadian and provincial, at least in Ontario, elections. After they check your name off the register and go you hand you the ballot you decline (or abstain). This gets counted separately from ballots that are spoiled. I haven't looked up what happens if many people decline to vote because not many know about it so type spoil ballots or vote for the best of the worst. Or you get idiots pulling stunts like this.
I know that in my city you can also decline your ballot. You should also be able to do that in all of the other cities in Ontario since that is where the law is made for voting in municipal elections.
The problem with that is often it's just one or two offices on the ballot that I have no confidence in.
In Canada putting a blank ballot in the box would be spoiling a ballot, same as marking it incorrectly or all of the candidates. When you decline to vote they put the ballot away separately and fill out a form stating that someone declined to vote. This way they know that exactly how many people declined to vote.
No, every election shouldn't have a line for "None of the above". If a voter doesn't like any of the candidates, he or she can still help society by voting for the lesser of two evils. (Or if there are n undesirable candidates on the ballot, by voting for the least of n evils.)
Does it suck when you have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils? Sure, but if you don't, you're more likely to get the greater of two evils. Which sucks even more.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
He intended it to show as "ZNONEOFTHE, ABOVE" (at the bottom of the list), but only the federal elections list names first by last name. The provincial election is by first name, so it will appear at Above, ZNONEOFTHE. Oh well.
Since I learned about voting in high school, I've wondered why there is no option to exchange your vote *for* someone into a vote *against* someone. For those times when you don't want anyone to win, but you *really* don't want someone specific to win.
Not Sure
"None of the above" is a good option but only makes sense in an electoral system which can call elections at any time. Oh, there was no viable outcome to this election? Well then have another one in a couple months.
But it doesn't make sense with a Constitutionally mandated strict voting schedule. We'd have to change that.
It's not like this is a new idea...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
I'm sure someone with a more acute knowledge of political history could best my lame, Hollywood reference. Political history is rife with idiocy so it's easy to retrofit certain events to the current times.
No sig for you! Come back one year!