We can see definitions of democracy like "rule of the majority" or "government by the people" or something similar in dictionaries. First of all, usually parties or individuals win the elections less than 50% votes, so to me, "majority" concept goes out from the window. Second, in most of the elections, we vote for someone who is supposed to vote for someone,... multi-level system. The person we elected, who supposed to vote for person A, may vote for person B, which we might hate; there is no law against this, as far as I know. Yes, it will never happen, but technically it's possible. Anyway, this is not my real concern, just seems awkward and disturbing idea.
My real issue here, we are forced to pick someone or a party, we have to say YES, even if we don't like any of the candidates.
Everybody is saying the same before the elections "Go vote" " You have to vote" or "If you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain after the elections" and so forth.
Why ?
Let's say I don't like any of the candidates, so I don't vote, why should I vote ?
Many people think like me, and doesn't vote but unfortunately, this doesn't reflect the real picture after the elections, moreover, so called experts, analysts talks for hours about the results, as if any of their stuff they are talking makes sense.
In some cases, I felt like I have to choose my execution method; gun, rope, electric chair, gas chamber...
The solution: There has to be a NO vote, just like YES vote and we must have a right to use one of them or both of them; for example, I vote YES for candidate A and vote NO for candidate D, my brother votes YES to candidate B and doesn't use his NO vote and my sister votes NO for candidate D and doesn't use her YES vote... and you got the picture !
It's simple and considering the technology we have, it will not add any difficulty to the existing system.
In the future, probably it's better to have more than one YES votes and NO votes but I believe it's too early for that and we should evolve step by step. One YES and one NO vote will do the trick for now.
When we look at the results of that kind of elections, we will see the real picture, who is liked most and who gets the most negative reaction from people. And the winner must be decided by subtracting NO votes from YES votes.
Someone who has more NO votes than YES, cannot represent those people, when you think about it. Unfortunately, there are many leaders in the world, have more NO votes than YES votes and the world is not going towards to a right direction.
I'm writing this after US elections and this was the most extreme and obvious example of why election system has to be changed.
If there were YES and NO vote system like I explained, both Clinton and Trump couldn't reach to the final stage of the race. Both would have been eliminated at some point because they got more NO votes than YES votes.
This election was the election of who was hated less; I know many people voted for Trump because they hated Clinton so much or vice versa, which was wrong in thousand different ways.
YES/NO vote system has multiple advantages;
- For a start, it will prevent negative campaign, at least the degree of negativity will drop dramatically
- It will prevent radical, crazy people to be elected and will save the democracy
- It will attract more people for voting; people who doesn't bother to vote, will use their NO votes to express their feelings. The number of votes will increase, IMO, at least 20% maybe even more.
Let's have a sample elections with candidates A,B,C,D.
2 candidates, C and D, have more supporters then the other 2 and most likely one of them will win in the current election system.
People are going to listen all kinds of nonsense talks, dirty laundry stories between candidates C and D, accusing each other for anything and everything. Some like this stuff, but not the majority of population and this kind of campaign doesn't show us who is better or who will serve better.
Let's say, the election result would be like;
A: 9% B: 9% C: 40% D: 42%
In the YES/NO voting system; first of all, they can't attack each other particularly. If they do, their supporters will use their NO votes against the other one and they will take out each other, which will be a suicide. The third candidate probably will win the elections in this case.
We would see a result something like this
YES votes => A: 9% B: 9% C: 40% D: 42%
NO votes => A: x% B: y% C: 42% + some D: 40% + some
which would result to win either A or B. To prevent this picture, each candidate will try not to annoy other candidate's supporters, to avoid NO votes and they will concentrate on positive things, what they can do better and so forth. As a result, NO votes will reflect the real picture.
Let's say, candidate D, is a radical guy with crazy ideas. There will be such candidates and there will be many supporters for this kind of candidates; there is no way to eliminate these in the existing system and they may win, and they do. We have seen this many times in the history of elections.
In the YES/NO voting system, regardless of the other candidate's ideas and beliefs, people will react to this crazy person and most of the NO votes will go this candidate D
picture would be
NO votes => A: x% B: y% C: z% D: 80% +
As we can see, there is no way, D can win the elections and the democracy and the system will be safe.
It was different times and situation was quite different but if we look at the 1933 German elections, Hitler got 43% of votes to be elected, less than 50%. Other parties were not even close but if there were a YES/NO voting system, there is big chance that Hitler could have loose the elections.
If we don't go that far; let have a look at Toronto mayoral election in 2010. I'm sure Ford would lose the elections (won by 47% votes, less than 50% again). The half of the city liked him and the other half didn't like him at all, yet he won. With the YES/NO voting system, his net votes would be less than 10% or may be even negative.
These wise ass expert guys, commenting, analyzing the elections (before or after) talking about people should get together around "a" candidate, or other candidates were weak so this crazy guy won the elections and blah blah blah...
This is ridiculous !... You can't force people to vote for someone they don't believe in. It's just wrong ! Everybody has a right to vote for whoever they believe in, which is the good part of the system but as we all know, many candidate A and B supporters in our example, might vote for C to stop D and this is fine for many but not for me. Also since these people feel like their candidate will not win anyways, so they don't even bother to go for voting.
The solution is YES/NO system; People must have an option, they shouldn't feel helpless or hopeless. If system gives them a NO vote option, millions of people will get out of their couch and go for a vote, even if they don't have a favorite candidate, they will vote NO for this candidate D guy or whoever they believe doesn't fit for the job.
I talked to a few friends about this idea and they were like "maaaaah, sounds interesting but since people may vote NO only, what if all candidates have more NO votes than YES votes?"
That's exactly my point actually; Many elections may end up with this kind of situation, because of unqualified candidates. There has to be someone fits for the job and the system will find that person eventually.
American system seems to be the best in this case; We see who has a chance of winning, state by state; it's a long marathon.
In the recent elections; both parties had the same problem, had one strong candidate loved and hated in the same degree. If the system were YES/NO voting system, they would be eliminated at some point for sure and both parties would select a strong candidate "most liked and least hated"
Whoever gets elected in the YES/NO voting system will be accepted with the majority of the population and democracy is system of majority, at least supposed to be.
The most liked and least hated person must be the leader.
I hope people will realize one day that we have a very crippled democracy and we deserve a better one.
I will continue about this subject, but that's another day.
K.A.
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