CV Protects the Right to Say No JMR
Levine, Jonathan. The Case for Compulsory Voting The National Interest. Nov. 2012.
Any scheme for compulsory voting must unequivocally protect the right to say no. Nevada offers an interesting solution in 1975, facing unprecedented voter disgust over Watergate, Nevada became the only state in America to include a none of these candidates option alongside the major parties. And while it was a step in the right direction, the initiative was nonbinding and toothless. In the 1976 Republican Congressional primary, none of these candidates trounced its competitors, and yet, despite the abjectly clear will of the voters, the nomination went to the nearest runner-up (who, perhaps unsurprisingly, went onto lose to the Democratic incumbent. For compulsory voting to be viable, the public must be given a full complement of options. All states should present voters with the option of none of these candidates and should require the parties to field new candidates in another round, should that be the will of the people.
This argument proposes that an even better alternative to abstention is that the ballot has an option
“none of these candidates for the voter to voice their discontent with the candidates. This option would
require the democratic system to be pay more attention to the will of the people so that if the majority
does not find any of the candidate suitable another round of candidates must be introduced. In practice,
this method would strengthen the democratic process considerably more than simply allowing for
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