Tag Archives: Progress

Response to Government Position on NOTA

August 6, 2014 Leave a comment

Eileen Vagg at the Cabinet Office recently responded to our request for her to elaborate on the government’s position on NOTA. Here is my reply which contains all the points she raised in order, nothing omitted:

Dear Eileen,

Thank you for your correspondence. Allow me to go through it point by point.

1: “The Government considers that, when participating in a ballot, the position should be that the elector makes a positive choice of a representative rather than a negative one. It does not agree, therefore, that the introduction of a provision such as the one you suggest would be a positive step.”

This is not an argument, it is a logical fallacy. Specifically it is a ‘circular argument’. Essentially this: “The government believes electors should make a positive choice, therefore it doesn’t believe NOTA is a positive step.” Aside from containing a baseless, unspoken assumption that NOTA is negative, this offers zero reasoning for your repeated claim that engaging in the positive abstention of voting NOTA is a negative act. If you offer no logical reasoning to back up such a claim, it simply cannot ever stand up to scrutiny. The fact that you would attempt to dismiss such an important issue using such a clumsy logical fallacy suggests to me that perhaps you actually do realise that our assertions about NOTA representing the ability to withhold consent, which is itself central to the concept of democracy, are correct and that it therefore would be an inherently positive, democratising step to include it on the ballot paper – but that you would rather not have to deal with such a massive, game changing issue so close to an election.

2: “The Government believes it should be for candidates and the political parties to actively engage the electorate so they can make a positive choice of representation.”

So do we. Why do you think having NOTA would prevent this? On the contrary, if the electorate had the option to reject all candidates and parties on offer, then clearly there would be even more incentive for them to try to engage the electorate. One more positive reason why we should have NOTA.

3: “Neither the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) nor the United Nations’ ‘Universal Declaration on Human Rights’ (UDHR) requires states to adopt a particular electoral system.”

We never said it did. What we said is that these internationally recognised documents basically state that in a true democracy, elections must allow for the consent of the electorate to be sought and won before a government can be formed. As stated previously, consent is immaterial if it is not possible to withhold consent. Abstaining is not the same as formally withholding consent, it is simply not participating and can be dismissed as voter apathy with no further analysis. Spoiling the ballot is not the same either as all spoilt ballots are lumped in with those spoilt in error. Any spoilt vote count is therefore meaningless and does not provide an accurate measure of voter discontent. The only way to formally withhold consent at an election is by having an official NOTA option on the ballot paper with formalised consequences for the result if the majority choose it. In other words, without NOTA, the truly representative democracy that both the ICCPR and the UDHR call for is not possible. Ergo, these documents could be shown to indicate that NOTA is, arguably, a legal requirement in any truly representative democracy.

3: “The secrecy of the ballot allows the free expression of the elector.”

Indeed, but this is not irrelevant. The issue is not one of secrecy, it is one of consent and the ability to meaningfully withhold it, currently denied us.

4: “Your suggestion that an election is re-run where more than 50% of electors choose a NOTA option would lead to difficulties, not least of which is a lack of representation for constituents.”

What difficulties? The only difficulty it would lead to is that it would make it much harder for the current political elite to dominate the UK political system ad infinitum. For the already completely unrepresented majority in the UK, that is not a difficulty, it is progress. The one difficulty you have cited already exists, clearly. If anything, having NOTA would ultimately lead to better representation of constituents due to the knock on effect of having it (alluded to in point 2 above).

5: “The suggestion that there could be a temporary representation followed by a further election would not be straightforward and would raise a number of issues.”

But presumably issues not significant enough to actually warrant listing them. The only issue I see it raising is that it would level the playing field and cause the current political elite to have less dominance, a good thing for true democracy. Without a proposal to deal with the logistics, a NOTA win would indeed ‘not be straightforward’. That is precisely why we have put forward just such a proposal to make it as straight forward as possible. I note that you have not acknowledged this proposal at all in your response.

6: “The Government has no plans to bring forward legislation to introduce such an option on the ballot paper, but will keep under review the ways in which the democratic process may be enhanced.”

Well, we’ve just outlined a way in which the democratic process in the UK may be significantly enhanced and you have rejected it totally on entirely spurious grounds. So presumably, ‘reviewing’ is as far as the government is prepared to go on this issue. Also known as ‘paying lip service’.

Thank you anyway for your reply. We at least now know the extent of your commitment to improving our democracy. We will continue to make the solid, indisputable case for NOTA out in the real world with a view to eventually making it an election issue that can no longer be dismissed and swept under the carpet as you have tried to do with your response.

Yours sincerely,
Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
http://www.nota-uk.org

Feel free to send further POLITE responses to Eileen Vagg at elections@cabinet-office.gsi.gov.uk

The ‘Judean People’s Front’ Myth

June 11, 2014 1 Comment

The People’s Front of Judea

I read an excellent article on Alternet the other day about one of the perils of getting involved with any kind of activism:

Should We Fight the System or Be the Change?
By Mark Engler and Paul Engler

It’s long, but if you have the time I highly recommend reading it in full. For me, it demystified one aspect of the well documented inability of social reformers throughout the ages to get their respective acts together, a problem so brilliantly lampooned in Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ all those years ago.

For brevity, in a nutshell, the Engler’s are saying that there are two vastly different approaches to activism:

1: ‘Fight the system’ – strategically attempting to reform and evolve existing structures for the benefit of all and the betterment of society in general through various means (this need not be done violently as the word ‘fight’ implies, it simply means engaging directly with the problem)

2: ‘Be the change’ – living differently, outside of the existing systems, in the hope that this will foster organic change on a larger scale over time.

The thrust of the article is that in order for real change to come about, both these approaches are useful and need therefore, ideally, to come together in some way – but that this is more often than not impossible due to the apparently conflicting nature of the two approaches and the people adopting them.

Although I’d never really thought about it that much until reading this article, I realise now that I instinctively try to ensure that my personal activism incorporates both these approaches to one degree or another, depending on the issue.

The latter approach is important because, as my friend, author and activist Cornelius Crowley recently commented elsewhere, by living a certain way we can “create social change underneath their feet, at the grass roots, in our schools, churches, synagogues, libraries, county halls and pubs, etc…” For this reason, I choose to live my life in a way that ensures I have as little as possible to do with systems and structures that I see as contributing to the continuation of the various endemic social problems that we as a species face.

The problem is, if that is all that we as activists are doing, it’s not enough. Because established power will still be able to use force to shut down and undermine these grass roots movements and it undoubtedly will whenever it can get away with it. Without actually addressing the structural and systemic problems that make that possible, at the same time as establishing grass roots changes by living our lives differently, tyranny remains the likely end result.

It follows then, that in order to be successful, activists and social reformers need to adopt both approaches in tandem. This is the reason why I devote so much time to making the case for NOTA, not to the converted, but strategically, to those who have the power to bring the issue to a head i.e. the mainstream media, the PR obsessed mainstream political parties, sympathetic members of the establishment and the like.

The Popular People’s Front (“Splitter!”)

An almost text book example of the extremely damaging gulf between the two approaches outlined above is the perceived split in the NOTA campaign between those campaigning for an actual ‘None of the Above’ option ‘with teeth’ on the UK ballot paper (NOTA UK, est. 2010) and those that believe mimicking it by playing the game of standing candidates on a supposedly NOTA platform is the same thing (Notavote / The NOTA party, est. 2012/3 – not 2007 as some of their members claim!).

For many in this latter group, NOTA appears to primarily represent a lifestyle choice, an opting out of society as a whole, a rejection of any and all governance. As such, they are ‘being the change’, to a degree, and are akin to the ‘prefigurative‘ groups referred to in the article – groups that were initially useful in terms of facilitating a shift in consciousness but, ultimately, an albatross around the neck of those strategically campaigning for the systemic and structural changes that all parties claimed to seek.

No doubt, many a potentially world changing movement has been scuppered by the short-sightedness and inability to see the bigger picture of the well meaning ‘prefigs’.

To confuse things further, in the case of NOTA, this perception of a divide is actually a false one, as the seemingly ‘prefig’ element doesn’t actually embody the changes us strategists seek at all. They are in fact conflating being able to withhold consent meaningfully in elections with some kind of uprising or revolution, rendering it an entirely separate enterprise in practice (which they then claim IS the real NOTA campaign – frustrating isn’t the word…). Although they would no doubt claim that what they are doing falls under the banner of strategically ‘fighting the system’, their misconstruing of what NOTA is and their promotion of it as a symbol of being ‘outside’, places them firmly under the ‘be the change’ banner, albeit in a somewhat ironic and inverted manner. Their election winning, establishment rocking fantasy appears to be merely an extension of that ethos.

Add to that the fact that some of their members routinely lie and use smear tactics against us in order to present themselves as the true face of NOTA (‘We were founded in 2007!’ / ‘We’ve already got NOTA on the ballot!’ / ‘NOTA UK? Talk about sour grapes!’), and the ‘prefig’ comparison starts to seem rather generous. These tactics hardly embody the principles that a campaign group seeking political reform ought to have, indeed they scream ‘more of the same’, I would suggest. A better definition for their approach to politics then, would perhaps be ‘non-figurative’. As in ‘abstract’.

Either way, these two groups are clearly not divided factions of the same movement, as they are often perceived to be. They are two totally separate crusades. One is campaigning for a structural, systemic change to the electoral system, the other is holding up that same concept as symbolic of its desire to live outside the constraints of established society. And there’d be absolutely nothing wrong with that – if it weren’t for the fact that the overlap caused by the latter is in danger of making it considerably harder for the former to do its job properly!

Tempting as it is, for the reasons outlined above, the all too easy ‘PFJ vs JPF vs PPF’ analogy in relation to those campaigning for NOTA at this time simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. So the next time you hear someone utter it, feel free to send them to this article.

Conclusion

Without a strategy that involves forming alliances with established power brokers to tackle and reform the systemic and structural reality of the injustice you are seeking to remedy (in this case NOTA UK’s approach to electoral reform), no amount of opting out of engaging with the injustice as it stands (Notavote’s ultimate destination, given how far removed their approach to NOTA is from the actual problem) is ever going to make a difference.

The injustice will trundle on regardless.

By Jamie Stanley
Founder, NOTA UK

UPDATE: On 28th October 2014, I became aware that Notavote, who were once infiltrated by known far right types Eva Silver and Junior Powell (see here: http://exeteredlnews.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/eva-silver-facebook-spam-lawful-rebellion-and-the-english-volunteer-force/), are now employing Britain First style tactics to promote themselves. Memes detailing Iain Duncan Smiths’s treachery and the like, things that people instantly want to share. Except that the text reveals that these are in fact adverts for a political party claiming to represent a bonafide None of the Above option simply by registering themselves as another one of the above. If you support our campaign for real NOTA, please spread the word about this, I cannot emphasise enough how potentially damaging to our prospects of achieving our goal this misguided group could be if they are allowed to hijack our campaign and undo all the good work we have done.

Commons Select Committee Evidence Submission

April 17, 2014 1 Comment

NOTA UK recently submitted written evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee as part of their inquiries into voter engagement. It has been accepted into the public record and published on their website. You can view it here:

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/7985

GUEST BLOG: The Legality of NOTA / Right to Reject

March 23, 2014 Comments: 3

Submitted by Rohin Vadera on 21/03/14

The Legality of NOTA / Right to Reject

Based on the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of India (SC) in September 2013 that electronic voting machines (EVMs) must include a ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option to retain the right of voters to continue to voice their will through a ‘negative vote’ (a term I dislike, by the way), I did further research based on the United Nations’ ‘Universal Declaration on Human Rights’ (UDHR) and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that was used in part by the SC to come to its judgement.

The full judgement is available here: http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Law/2013/vote_none.pdf

Below I paste a section from its judgement that quotes sections from the UDHR and ICCPR:

49) However correspondingly, we should also appreciate that the election is a mechanism, which ultimately represents the will of the people. The essence of the electoral system should be to ensure freedom of voters to exercise their free choice. Article 19 guarantees all individuals the right to speak, criticize, and disagree on a particular issue. It stands on the spirit of tolerance and allows people to have diverse views, ideas and ideologies. Not allowing a person to cast vote negatively defeats the very freedom of expression and the right ensured in Article 21 i.e., the right to liberty.

(Text highlighted by myself)

The UDHR is here: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=eng

The ICCPR is here: http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx

Further the SC noted the usefulness of ‘negative voting’ in its promotion of a healthy democracy.

However the NOTA option on the EVM is only the ability of a voter to abstain from voting, this abstention though noted will not affect the final result of the election. In my view this will mean that the NOTA option cannot achieve the potential described in the Supreme Court ruling below:

55) Giving right to a voter not to vote for any candidate while protecting his right of secrecy is extremely important in a democracy. Such an option gives the voter the right to express his disapproval with the kind of candidates that are being put up by the political parties. When the political parties will realise that a large number of people are expressing their disapproval with the candidates being put up by them, gradually there will be a systematic change and the political parties will be forced to accept the will of the people and field candidates who are known for their integrity.

For NOTA to have a substantive impact as described above it must be able to affect the results of an election. Politicians are used to wide spread approbation, so a symbolic NOTA will be shrugged off or used in some type of political game resulting in no substantive positive changes.

Further to that, a symbolic NOTA provides little incentive for disillusioned voters to express their voice as there is no clear and unambiguous consequence to that choice, other than insecurity and uncertainty if used widely. Insecurity and uncertainty is the worst type of result in an election and so this outcome undermines the use of NOTA, as it could encourage disillusioned voters to steer clear of the voting process altogether instead of choosing NOTA.

Below I argue how the UDHR and the ICCPR have wordings that strongly imply that having a NOTA option with the power to affect an election result is a legal and logical pre-requisite in any functioning democracy. By NOTA affecting an election result I specifically mean that if NOTA achieves a majority of the valid votes cast the election should be run again.

There are some practical and logistical issues to address in having such a system, some possible solutions to which are outlined in this blog on the NOTA UK website: https://nota-uk.org/2013/11/16/nota-for-real-logistics-ramifications/

First a quick introduction to the 2 documents I have cited.

The first is UDHR – ‘While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words “fundamental freedoms” and “human rights” appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states’……many international lawyers,[22] believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law’

(Text highlighted by myself)

The second is: ICCPR – the UK has signed and ratified this covenant (and so has most of the world)

From the UDHR Article 21 is relevant to NOTA, in my opinion:

  • 1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country directly or through freely chosen representatives.
  • 2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.
  • 3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

From ICCPR Article 25 is relevant:

Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable restrictions:

(a) To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;

(b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors;

(c) To have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in his country.

Taking each section I have highlighted in turn:

  •  ‘freely chosen representatives’ – Can representatives be said to be freely chosen if they cannot all be rejected? To me, it very much sounds like ‘real NOTA’ is required to fulfill this provision.
  • ‘the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of the government’ – the will of the people can only be expressed through their consent, if people cannot withhold their consent, then they cannot give their consent, therefore the will of the people has not been expressed and so the government has no basis for its authority.
  •  ‘guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors’ – We are guaranteed ‘real NOTA’ as a valid option on the ballot.

To me the interpretation of ‘the will of the people/electors’ is the most critical element. What does ‘will’ mean?

From the Oxford dictionary the meaning of will relevant to us is: expressing desire, consent, or willingness.

It’s clear that consent is a vital component of will. How can any government that is based on the will of the electorate not have their consent? Once we can establish that consent cannot be given without ‘real NOTA’ the UK government is bound by the UDHR and ICCPR to provide it.

Let me clarify how consent is linked with ‘real NOTA’ i.e. if NOTA achieved a majority of valid votes the election must be held again.

In a democracy, regardless of who we vote for, we consent that the winner of that election will represent the whole of that electorate. However if we do not have the means to withhold consent, it is impossible to give consent.

How can consent be given if it cannot be withheld?

The only fair and practical way consent can be withheld is by having a NOTA option on the ballot that ensures the election is held again if it receives a majority of the valid votes cast. To ensure fairness, if consent can be established by ticking a box on a ballot, then withholding consent must also be established by a method equivalent to giving consent.

For example, if I look at the list of candidates on the ballot and I find that none of them are worthy of my vote, I currently have no fair means of expressing that opinion and having it count – so the winner of the election is representing me without my consent. In a democracy, this is a clear violation of my rights and of everyone who feels as I do. The only way the free expression of my will can be expressed is through the ‘real NOTA’ option.

In my view NOTA is not a refinement of the voting system, it is a pre-requisite to any fair and equitable voting system that allows the free expression of the will of the electorate.

More importantly its presence has the potential to improve the quality of our political representatives in UK politics, as its presence will have to be accounted for in all calculations by political parties and their candidates. Currently, politicians only have an incentive to be the least worst in an election – with a ‘real NOTA’ option present they must strive to be the best.

Is this not a critical objective if we are to progress?

Even worse, the lack of ‘real NOTA’ means that poor candidates can make the entry of good candidates difficult by turning politics into a cesspool within which mainly only the unscrupulous can survive.

If voters are given real power in the political process it encourages their engagement, not just in the voting process, but in all aspects of the political process. They have now become active participants in their governance rather than passive recipients of governance that is on offer to them on a particular day.

Rohin Vadera

NOTA with teeth vs. faux NOTA

January 30, 2014 Comments: 2

A common argument made against having a NOTA option on the ballot paper is the ‘but NOTA doesn’t achieve anything’ argument.

I never understood the logic of that, so tended to dismiss such criticisms as baseless, founded on unexamined assumptions and therefore not worthy of comment.

Upon investigation, however, I discovered that there is a perfectly logical and valid reason why people believe this: their perception of NOTA is based on how they believe it has been implemented elsewhere and the impact it has had.

A perfectly rational way to assess an electoral reform’s effectiveness, you might think – until you realise that, in all cases, the form of NOTA in question bares no resemblance to the bonafide NOTA option with teeth that we are campaigning for.

This excellent article lists 12 countries where a form of NOTA exists, the most recent addition being India:

http://www.care2.com/causes/12-countries-where-citizens-can-vote-none-of-the-above.html

In all cases, NOTA is a token gesture with no ramifications whatsoever. If NOTA wins in any of these countries, literally nothing happens. The second placed live candidate takes office anyway.

What use is that? If there are no consequences when the majority reject all that is on offer, why bother making use of the option in the first place? Having such a token NOTA option does nothing for voter turnout as it offers no more incentive to the disenfranchised to vote than if it were not there at all. It therefore doesn’t even offer an effective way of measuring voter discontent – the bare minimum!

True NOTA, clearly, must have ramifications for the election result if it wins, otherwise it is meaningless. Our proposal is for just such a thing and is covered in detail here: https://nota-uk.org/2013/11/16/nota-for-real-logistics-ramifications/

So – the next time someone trots out the ‘NOTA won’t achieve anything argument’, politely remind them that true NOTA has never been tried anywhere and point them our way.

Know your NOTA campaigns!!!

January 30, 2014 Leave a comment

Due to perceived schisms, the campaign to get an official None Of The Above option on the UK ballot paper is often mocked for its apparent similarity to the ‘People’s Front of Judea’ from Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’…

Fortunately, amusing as it is to think of it that way, this is far from accurate.

That joke was aimed at the political ‘left’ in general who are notorious for fighting amongst themselves whilst supposedly fighting for the same things.

But that’s really not what is happening with the NOTA movement.

What we have is this:

1: A grass roots campaign group focused on making the solid case for NOTA with a view to mobilising massive public support for it and eventually getting it on the ballot paper as an inevitable government concession (that’s us, NOTA UK est. 2010)

2: An ambitious political party attempting to get itself elected on a NOTA platform (Notavote – a potentially distracting contradiction in terms, in our view) and a second allegedly far right group trying to hijack the NOTA campaign as a way of furthering its insipid aims via this facebook group: “NONE OF THE ABOVE CAMPAIGN (VOTING)”

That’s not like-minded people fighting amongst themselves. That’s a group of people who understand and are actively campaigning for an achievable goal and two groups claiming an association with that goal to further their own agendas, some well meaning, others not so much.

There is a difference.

There is only one bonafide NOTA campaign – and it is this one. Tell your friends!

“SPLITTERS!!!” *
—————–
* – humorous aside

Paxman endorses NOTA

December 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Jeremy Paxman calls for None Of The Above on BBC primetime!

Why NOTA is achievable

November 16, 2013 Comments: 2

Great social leaps forward generally occur in spite of government – not because of it.

Progressive social changes like votes for women and the birth of the NHS were borne of people coming together and fighting for a cause. Much as political parties of all stripes love to take credit for such things, the truth is that such leaps forward invariably occur in the form of inevitable government concessions that become necessary in order to keep the peace. So could it be with NOTA.

NOTA is a democratic pre-requisite. When you vote in an election, you effectively give consent to being represented by whoever wins. But  consent is immaterial if it is not possible to withhold consent.  NOTA represents the democratic right to withhold consent and exercise ones right to vote simultaneously.

When understood this way, as a democratic necessity, it is impossible to argue against NOTA without appearing anti-democratic. Even if they are, the political class can never be seen to be that. Ergo, with enough vocal support behind it, NOTA ought to one day be achievable as an inevitable government concession.

Getting the necessary level of public support is also possible, in our view, because NOTA is straightforward, self-explanatory and in tune with the public mood. By contrast, debates about the merits and pitfalls of various voting systems and more complex reforms like RON (re-open nominations), for example, are not. They appear exclusive, dull, and inaccessible to many.

NOTA remains the achievable and potentially unifying electoral reform from which all other reform could flow.

‘Spoiling the Ballot = NOTA’ and Other Voting Myths

November 16, 2013 Comments: 2

It is a common misconception that it is already possible to cast a vote for None of the Above in the UK by either not voting or spoiling the ballot paper.

Abstaining is simply not participating and can be dismissed as voter apathy with no further analysis.

Spoiling the ballot is not the same either as all spoilt ballots are lumped in with those spoilt in error. Any spoilt vote count is therefore meaningless and does not provide a measure of voter discontent.

An official NOTA option, by contrast, would.

Voting NOTA, if we could, would be a way of not just officially registering a vote of no confidence in all candidates, parties and policies put forward but also a way of demanding better choices.

Another common misconception is that if only more people would bother to vote, we’d get better parties, candidates and policies in government.

Unfortunately, when you really understand how our voting system works, it becomes clear that this is not the case.

The ‘First Past The Post’ voting system, combined with deeply entrenched voting habits in hundreds of traditionally safe Labour and Conservative seats, ensures that our electoral system is effectively a two horse race with only one or other of the big two able to form a government, either with an outright majority or in coalition with smaller parties who then have little or no influence over policy in practice.

In such a system, the third biggest party – currently the Liberal Democrats – exist solely to shoehorn one of the big two into power. For this reason, new parties and independents stand no chance of forming a government and very little chance of having any real influence over policy in our current system. Even with the best of intentions, they essentially just split the vote and facilitate the continuation of a two party system. This would be undemocratic even if those two parties were diametrically opposed – but they aren’t. Beyond the electioneering and hype, they are both parties of big business and little else, answerable to the same corporate and financial elites.

An official NOTA option would, by its very existence, level this playing field considerably. More discussion of the how and why can be found here:
https://nota-uk.org/2013/11/16/nota-for-real-logistics-ramifications/

NOTA for real: Logistics & Ramifications

November 16, 2013 Comments: 12

In order for an official NOTA option on the ballot paper to be effective, in the event of it “winning”, a remedial process must be triggered and the election rebooted/rerun with new candidates and/or policies in place.

Logistics: If we had NOTA and it received a majority share of the vote — either nationally at a general election or in specific constituencies at either local or general elections — this should render the corresponding vote count null and void. In the case of specific constituencies choosing NOTA, this should trigger a by-election with new candidates and/or policies. By extension, at a national level, a win for NOTA should trigger a re-run of the whole election with new candidates and/or policies in place.

Clearly, the logistics of having a re-run election and/or by-elections straight after a general election are problematic. For this reason, it is our proposal that to make this process run smoothly with the least disruption, rather than have the by-elections / re-run election happen straight away, the next placed live candidate or party, although beaten by NOTA, should be allowed to take office temporarily while the logistics of the re-run/by-election are put in place, on the understanding that they will occur no less than 6 months and no more than 12 months after the initial election. Without this there would be instant re-runs/by-elections and political instability. This solves that problem.

This proposal could even be modified to take into account the vote share for NOTA and the runners up in different constituencies with a view to staggering by-elections across the year to avoid political instability. For example, a NOTA win by 100% or more of the next placed live candidate or party’s votes could trigger a 6 month delay before the by-election, a NOTA win by up to 100% could trigger a 12 month delay, and so on. In practice, this needn’t be any more or less  problematic than the hung parliament scenario of last time round. It would, however, be infinitely more democratic and representative of the will of the electorate.

Ramifications: This system is workable and could deliver real change to UK politics. In the event of a NOTA win, the six month to one year delay before the by-elections / re-run election would give the electorate, parties and election organisers time to prepare for the new election/s. It would also give the next placed live candidate or party (who, although not victorious, will still have pulled a significant share of the vote) an opportunity to prove themselves worthy of being in office ahead of the new election/s, at which they would be free to stand again.

Whether or not the other previously rejected candidates would be allowed to stand again would be an issue for the parties and Electoral Commission to decide. Either way, it would hardly be in the interests of the parties to put forward an unpopular rejected candidate twice.

The upshot would be that all political parties would be forced to have a contingency plan in place if their candidates were roundly rejected the first time round, a plan that would have to involve having more progressive candidates and policies to put forward if need be. Of course, they may well approach this in a public relations, style-over-content manner to begin with — in which case people would be free to reject them via NOTA again if not convinced.

It may take a while, but eventually the parties would learn that they have to start actually representing the electorate in order to be elected. The logical progression from that is that self-serving career politicians would be discouraged from standing in the first place and those of integrity and a genuine will to represent their community would be encouraged.

This is democracy in action — impossible without NOTA, in our view. When seen this way, it becomes clear that voting NOTA, if we could, would not just be a vote against the current system but a vote FOR a better one.