While I was doing my research yesterday about the next bogus elections in Venezuela, I checked out the concept of Voting on Wikipedia. When I was reading, I got caught up with this:
Voting, Negative Voting - Wikipedia
This concept is worth thinking. I have seen for years, that in several countries democracy has failed when corruptocracy and partisanship have taken the main stage of identity politics. A rising group of individuals just stopped believing in elections as a way to make decisions for the good of the country, as partisanship tends to disparage critical thinking of individuals. Some believe in the badly called Anti-politics, as it's an actual Political stance against the established status quo. The problem is, that stance commonly comes in the form of Populism.
I have a long position stance against Populism. I think that that's the last step to establish an ochlocracy, and with that, a republic dies.
So, when I read this concept of Negative Voting, I realized that it a good topic to take into consideration, as I believe it has it's pros:
It eliminates polarization. Candidates with ideologies that impose radical changes or questionable agendas may be appealing for an important amount of people. But for others, they would strip of their rights. So, Negative Voting, would make this candidates to think again after imposing agendas that would harm them in an election. There would be a room for consensus, or at least a agenda that would be made not for their sympathizers, but for all of the electors.
Every candidate gets a real chance to actually have a shot to win. Campaign funding won't be as relevant to get a victory, as normally political campaigns focus on "why to vote for X". Campaigns have to be redesigned to actually give proposals to the electorate, as the most popular candidate or the most spending campaign isn't guaranteed to win.
Simple majorities are not enough to elect an official. Let's see this example:
So, in a normal election (positive voting), a candidate with a simple advantage of preference is not guaranteed to win, as it could be rejected by the majority.
You would say: "But there are some countries that have second rounds of elections, that solves the problem". Well, no. It doesn't. Because electors of the losing candidates lose their choice to really elect what they want. Some will not vote in that second round. They won't decide. By Negative voting, probably they could make a difference.
Also, I believe this system has it's cons. I believe that any candidate to win has to receive a minimal percentage of approval. It's nonsense to be a candidate, do nothing, get no votes, and get a chance to win. I would say, at least 3-5% of the total positive votes from the electorate.
Let's put this on a test on an hypothetical scenario. Lets say that the US Presidential elections are universal, not second degree elections. Then, check this results:
Now, think for a sec:
How many Trump voters voted for him because they truly believed in him?
How many Trump voters voted for him because they voted against HRC?
How many HRC voters voted for her because they truly believed in her?
How many HRC voters voted for him because they voted against Trump?
After thinking about these questions, Do you realize that in this hypothetical example, Gary Johnson could have chance to win?
I also want to invite @cupidzero and @dwinblood to give their impressions about this. Don't know if these ideas can be taking into account to @cupidzero essays about voluntarysm.
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All my votes in my 8 years of voting were protest votes. I don't see much better use of voting besides that.
what about a 'quorum'.
if there are 100 million elgible voters (for example) then at how many votes should be required before the election is considered valid?
for example... estimates are that 58% of the legal voters did so in the last US election.
is that enough?
is that an acceptable quorum?
I see your point. 58% is a kind of low turnout, but still is more than 50%, so... I think +50% would be considered enough quorum to decide something. Not ideal, but fair enough.
And I give you a question back:
Why do you think the 42% of legal votes didn't vote? This could be the reasons:
How can giving them an option to dissapprove a candidate would make them eager to vote? Third party candidates could really have a chance. I have learned while seeing the last 3 US elections, that some voters have an affiliation with a third party candidate at some degree, but as elections come closer they swing to republican or democrat just to avoid their opposite candidate to win. And that takes its toll. If you vote for a candidate to counter the other, and your choice turns to be worse in the long run, probably you won't vote again at all.
Negative Voting could solve this decision dilemma.