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Originally Posted by Platapus
What you are referring to is called a "null vote" i.e. a vote cast but not for any candidate. Null voting is a valid vote and can be important. ...
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Here in California, the vast majority of voters don't understand the concept of a null vote. This may stem from voting policies in the distant past voiding an entire ballot if any one item on the ballot didn't get voted upon. The practice was intended to encourage (enforce) voters to vote on every item on the ballot, but the practice was eliminated some time back, although I can't recall whether it was stopped by court action or legislative action. The "None of the Above" Jerry Brown espoused was the only time it ever appeared on the ballot, AFAIK, and hasn't been raised seriously since. The belief at the time was both parties were soundly and publicly embarrassed neither could muster enough voter support to get their candidate/issue passed. For the voters, it was a chance to visibly express their dissatisfaction with the parties. The Null Vote may be there, but it becomes the "dirty little secret" the parties don't want voters to know about lest they male greater use of the ability. What I would have found interesring would have been if one of the parties' candidate/issue had come in first, follwoed by "None of the Above", and the other party in third. I wonder what the reaction of the third place party would have been to such a public shunning? ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Platapus
Ugh. I remember those days. It really sucked working the polls. We are lucky, we have our poll books on laptop computers and it makes the book keeping a lot easier. ..
Does your state still do it this way? If so, I hope that one day soon they will change and get laptops. It makes the process faster (voters like that), easier (election officers like that) and less error prone (SBE likes that).
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California has a multitude of poll practices and voting methods since voting administration is overseen on a county level and, thus, is open to the influence of county budgets, voter preferences, political party finagling, and other factors. Here, in Los Angeles, we still have the paper log books; I don't know about the res of the state. The County did try electronic voting around the 2004 election, but it seemed everyone, voters, political parties, political commentators, and anyone else involved were quite vocal in nixing the idea so, since then, we have stuck with mid-20th century methods. Shame, really; the electronic system was very easy to use and was very transparent...
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