None of the above

The NOTA proposal is also complementary to optional preferential voting. Both ideas work on the principle of maximum choice. One should not have to rank order every candidate, and one should be able to reject all of the candidates.

Behind this proposal are some larger, widely-shared concerns. Australian democracy, like democracy elsewhere, is party-dominated, yet the party memberships make up a minuscule fraction of citizens. They are today not mass democratic parties.

The parties are far from democratic. Party membership by itself ensures very little say in party affairs. Party conferences are not policy-making events. Policies are handed down and rubber-stamped. Political candidates are selected from a very narrow spectrum of society.

Democracy is a procedural concept, not a substantive one, so political reform requires that we forget about substantive politics and policies and ideologies and look at procedures. The problem we face is a process failure, not a policy failure. People from all points on the policy spectrum should be able to agree on procedural points.

We need to find ways of putting people back into the democracy. One way of achieving this is, perhaps paradoxically, to legitimise the protest vote. If, say, 30 per cent of voters voted “none of the above”, we would all begin to wonder whether we need some fresh ideas.

To sum up, three contentions favour the NOTA proposal:

It is justified as a valid vote for three categories of voter: the uninterested, the undecided, and the protest voter.

It is justified as a small step towards more a democratic system. Such a vote would have meaning indicative of political health or illness - it helps us to find a clearer signal in what otherwise is construed as noise.

And it is one of the few achievable steps towards political reform, where political reform is much needed but almost unachievable, given the current party hold on power