Posted in reply to the post by Valley Oak:
There are a few observations:
With preference voting (IRV or Ranked Choice Voting, etc), your vote cannot go to anyone unless you rank that person with a number (the number indicates your level of preference for any given candidate). If you don't rank a candidate, let's say George Bush, then Bushy boy cannot get your vote. You simply leave the box next to his name empty. That's it.
If there are 5 candidates running for the same seat, let's say, Mr. X, Mr. Y, Ms. Z, Ms. A, and Ms. T, you can rank each one with a number according your preference. Let's say you like Ms. T the most and Ms. A as the next best candidate. You write a number '1' next to Ms. T and the number '2' next to Ms. A.
Let's say you cannot stand the sight of Mr. X, Mr. Y, or Ms. Z. You simply don't write anything at all and your vote does not go to them. If your 1st and 2nd choices don't win then your vote disappears. No one gets your vote. But if either Ms. T or Ms. A won the contest then that means that your vote helped them win (conversely, without your vote, it is quite possible that the winner would not have won, but this happens only in contests within small organizations, such as a nonprofit voting for its board members, etc).
Keep in mind that this is for a single seat, such as POTUS, governor, mayor, or a congressional seat (e.g. Woolsey's district, etc). Not to be confused with more complex voting systems where, for example, a voter must elect 5 people out of a group of, let's say, 12 candidates, in which case, a 'cumulative voting' method would be used (
Cumulative voting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
Another observation is that what your are talking about reminds me of NOTA (None of the above). This is like a dead horse that has been beaten mercilessly into the ground for ages. I remember attending the Green Party of Sonoma County meetings in downtown Santa Rosa several years ago and it was a sore subject because most folks found no value in including NOTA as an option in a list of candidates for internal party elections. I was not part of the lengthy meetings where NOTA was hashed out and rehashed but I did come to learn about it and NOTA was dropped as an acceptable "option" on voting for candidates. The Green Party officially endorses proportional representation and IRV but does not support NOTA. Apparently, only a minority wanted NOTA.
The other observation I have is that a negative vote, voting against someone, reminds me of when Pagan coven votes on admitting a new coven member, all of the coven brothers and sisters vote yes or no on that candidate. From what I understand, though, the election must be unanimous. A coven is like a family. That is the only example that I am recalling right now where negative votes are counted against a candidate. In any case, voting for someone you like in an election for public office has the same effect as voting against someone you don't like. But if you don't like anyone, then we are back at the NOTA debate.
I think the best possible solution is to have write-in candidates, like they have had in the past in San Francisco. That's how Tom Amiano became prominent in an election contest some years ago, can't remember which one it was exactly. But I think that write-in candidates offer a much better solution than NOTA.
I'll be honest, I think there is an excruciatingly absurd element in NOTA, because among other things, it implies that we can have no one elected as a result, and well...I don't know. I suppose that we could entertain situations where that might be desirable or if someone has a nihilist attitude and hates all politics no matter what then that's what they would prefer. But I don't think it's a very serious or viable approach to government.