None of the Above

There've been several elections I've voted in where I disliked all the candidates for some office or another. I've wished there were a binding way of saying None of these turkeys--try again.

Suppose there were? How could we get it to work?

First off, we can't do this for the office of the President without monkeying with the Constitution, and I want to avoid that. Any experiments we should try locally and see what happens. (The Law of Unintended Consequences is a fundamental rule of the Universe.)

Let's define a simple model, and try it out as a gedanken experiment. Bear in mind that this does not interfere with other voting approaches, such as weighted voting.

For each office, the last name on the ballot is "None of the Above." If a candidate achieves a majority, he wins. If no candidate achieves a majority, there is a runoff election. In that runoff election no candidate outpolled by "None of the Above" may appear. If, for example, NOTA (None of the Above) receives more votes than all but candidate A, then candidate A may appear on the runoff ballot, but the others may not. All parties which ran candidates on the first ballot may offer replacement candidates, with the number of signatures required to appear being reduced. NOTA is also a candidate on this runoff election.

If no candidate receives a majority in the runoff election, a second runoff election is scheduled. The number of signatures required to appear on the ballot is the same as for the first runoff. This time no candidate is excluded, and NOTA does not appear on the ballot (somebody has to serve in the office, after all). (There might be a third runoff between the top two vote-winners.)

Comments:

• This is apt to be expensive.
• Getting together enough signatures in a few weeks is hard, and biases the system towards nominating people for the runoffs who have a very strong organization backing them, such as party and labor leaders. Personal shoeleather campaigns are less likely to win.
• If party X has a strong candidate A and nobody else in the wings as good, then party Y faces a strong temptation to wage a campaign of cynicism in hopes that NOTA will win and give party Y a better chance in the runoff.

The way it ought to work

All parties nominate decent candidates who argue about issues and credentials. The voters give one a majority.
Scenario A

Party X nominates A and party Y nominates B. During the campaign we discover that A has some unfortunate character traits or lack of skill. Yellow-dog partisans of X, unwilling to ever vote for anyone from party Y, vote for NOTA hoping for a runoff. If NOTA actually outpolls candidate B, B must not be very popular in the district, and it doesn't distort the representation to let party X have the chance to try somebody new. Conclusion: It costs $$ but doesn't misrepresent the wishes of the voting public.
Scenario B

Voters become even more cynical than they are now. Rather than stay home when they don't know who's who, a significant number show up and register protest NOTA votes. This could be important, as about 60% of potential voters don't. Voters who don't show up don't distort the results much, but voters trying to sabotage the system can. Conclusion: Regular wins by NOTA are a warning sign. Either the parties are fielding jerks, the campaigns are worthless, or a large chunk of the population has given up on democracy.
Scenario C

Selecting nominees becomes a poker game, where party bosses calculate the chances of forcing a runoff; offering sacrificial candidates for the first round and campaigning for NOTA. They balance the risk that the other party might beat NOTA and the risk that NOTA might also win the runoff against the chance of putting the other party's best candidate out of the running. Conclusion: I don't see any upside to this. The strategy is very risky, but I've learned not to underestimate the cunning of political strategists.

Worth a try?

A city might be willing to try this experiment, if the state legislature could be persuaded to agree. Yours?