This twaddle about "you have to exercise your right to vote" is shear bollocks.

1) The choices offered me. I don't seem to have a voice in who those choices might be. The entire field is bought and paid for by the corporations and special interest groups long before I have any say in who they are and what they stand for.

2) The choice offered me is between equally loathsome diametrically opposed candidates representing the extremist views of right and left. Worse, no matter who wins, we as a nation lose simply because these walking stereotypes have no interest in doing the job of discharging the peoples business. They spend their time ignoring any oncoming trainwreck so the can blame their opposition for the disaster, and thereby "win".

So, if we accept that there are no choices offered that feel doing the job itself is important or even necessary, rather its all about "winning", we have a mathematical problem with this notion one "has" to vote.

The only way you can vote against someone is to vote for the other person. That means you are giving another bum who is pre-vetted by special interest groups (therefore not representing your interest) approval. That means you approve that idiot by giving them your vote.

Currently, the only way you can not approve either is to not vote for either; not vote at all. The notion you are voting against anyone is mathematical nonsense. So, as long as both choices are equally an anathema, I withhold my vote from both.

If someday you might be allowed to actually cast a "no" vote for a candidate just by itself, and be able to vote "no" to either or both without having to necessarily cast "yes" to the other choice, I'd be all over that. Only then would we have a real voice, one that would say we refuse the selection you've offered. They suck. Go back and choose new ones to offer for our approval. The power would once again be vested in the electorate.

Until then, if no-one is worthy of my vote, it is too precious to award to one over the other just because one slimebag isn't quite the slimebag the other slimebag is.

The only other way I'd do it would be if there came a third party, one that existed solely to actually do the people's business. No left, no right, no social revolution, no reactionism, just run as a public servant. "I'm not here with an agenda. I'm here to work."

Wouldn't that party turn this nightmare reality TV show on its arse?

Grin!