Need for NOTA Now! (June 2012)

I don’t think I can count all the primary elections that will be the de facto general election for a given office. Regardless of the party, there seems to be more than a few offices that a win in the primary will elect the official. I realize that districting has a part to play in this but don’t we deserve more?

Our Supreme Court made a ruling that has created, at best, a chaotic primary season. Incumbents are finding themselves running unopposed. There seems to be no fix quick enough to satisfy Federal compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I don’t want to call anyone out by name, but there are races where almost all the candidates have ethical or criminal allegations against them. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty; however, we are not just talking about a citizen otherwise going about their everyday business. We are talking about people that will be elected to an office with a 2 to 4 year term. Many of these will have a salary higher than the average family income for a year and funded by our taxes. 

Can’t we do better than this? Can’t we DEMAND better than this? Certainly we deserve better than this.

I don’t know if we can do better than this but we should be able to demand better. And this is where NOTA comes in. I have posted about and will continue to post about NOTA until adoption by all political parties and our state.

NOTA is an acronym for None Of The Above. As described in a previous blog, if adopted, NOTA would be a selection for every elected office. If NOTA “won” the election, it would be re-held and losing candidates would be ineligible to run in that election. A new slate would be drawn.

The hope is we would eventually get a decent slate of candidates rather than having to “choose between the lesser of two evils.”

Had NOTA been in place, there would be no chaos. The solution would be in our hands.

Palmetto Bug

I have not received many comments on this blog so far. I am soliciting specific comments for this post.

As a comment, please list any primary or other electoral race where either:

1.      There is a lack of competition or someone is running unopposed.

2.      There are enough ethical, criminal, or other serious concerns to warrant a desire for a better choice of candidates.

If we generate enough post for this, I will send copies to elected officials, party chairmen, and to editors of daily newspapers in our state.

Maybe then we can get better choices.

Palmetto Bug