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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
FTFY
What's more, if it won, the election should be rerun with none of the previous candidates allowed on the new ballot.
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.
People being too stupid to read being allowed to vote might be outlawed shortly after.
I'd consider that a good thing.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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?
Too late. That and variations on it have been tried in several countries -- so far with little success as far as changing outcomes is concerned.
From what I remember (and it may be urban legend as it has been a long while since I heard of it) some guy once registered a whole bunch of phone companies with names like "anyone", "the first one" etc. So that when people were wanting to be connected by the operator (this was way back when) and the operator asked them which long distance service to use the callers not caring who they were routed through replied with things like "anyone" etc so that their response matched one of these companies. The operator then duly connected them via the explicitly named company. The kicker was that it the back end he leased his service from the main players but charged a huge premium above what a regular long service would charge.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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.
60%? That high? I'm lucky if I see someone from another state who matches my stances by even 25%, let alone my state which is stupendously conservative.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Plenty of European countries do this and it results in a different set of problems. First, to vote for a party which matches your views such a party has to exist, what happens in practice is that parties which aim at large sections of the population form, because they have the greatest chance of election. Second having a parliament full of multiple parties means none of them usually has a clear majority and so you frequently get weak coalition governments. Third it's almost impossible to get rid of politicians because the established ones make sure they are high on the party lists, so they will get in no matter what. This takes away their connection to their constituency and their sense of responsibiity to their electorate.
Don't forget that you can end up with somebody winning who actually represents a small minority--that the majority of people could have easily agreed against, but because they failed on agreeing sufficiently on who else that person won anyway--and you can actually end up with greater polarization than in a two-party system since paradoxically the size of that 'large section of population' is smaller, especially if you indulge in salami tactics & generally aim to divide and conquer...which is a good way to ensure the situation of 'person the majority would vote against winning' will happen.