[geeks] I just saw...

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 @ 08:59 -0500, Phil Stracchino said:

> Unfortunately, in most states -- and in Federal elections -- we don't
> have the capability to vote "None of the above".  Texas, though, has
> binding NOTA, and so I believe does Oregon.  Does anyone in those states
> have any numbers on how often NOTA wins?

Unfortunately, NOTA tends to split one party's votes more than the
others, so often voting NOTA means voting for someone you might think is
the worst of the lot.

In fact, a single vote has that problem anyway.  It's very easy for
someone who doesn't meet majority approval to win an election.

Consider three candidates:

			voter
			like		approve
demo		34			34
repo		32			60
libr		32			60

This is actually a common situation. One group of voters splits among
two parties, but disapproves of the third. The person the people do not
want to win, does win.

The demo wins, but most people don't approve of him.

Depending on where you live, this situation can occur in a variety of
ways of course.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["We have nothing to prove" -- Alan Dawkins]