system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: "Negative Voting" (i.e. a vote against someone and not for someone) should be allowed

This is something I have been thinking about and I havent been able to find a significant or dangerous flaw so I figured Id open it to some fresh eyes.

Everyone should always vote. I really don't care what kind of election it is or who is running, but your vote should always be submitted and counted. However, many people see voting between multiple "bad" choices as a futile effort and choose not to vote at all. I believe a Negative vote option would eliminate this mindset.

If only 2 people are running in the election, one could argue that a vote for A is a vote against B. But (as is usually the case) when there are more than 2 people and you do not want to vote for A, having only the option of voting *for* B or C (if you dont really like them either) adds disincentive to vote. But if you know you have the option of a "Negative A" vote, then you can still make your strongest opinion known that you dont want A and that B or C is more preferable but you dont really care between them that much.

A difficulty of this system is that counting could take longer if the ballots must be counted by hand. However, many systems are available that would allow for automatic counting to not take any longer (i.e. all you would need is a bubble to fill in that says "NEGATIVE VOTE" above or near each name). I do not want to hear that this would be confusing. It could be made confusing if that was the intent, but a ballot that is:

> Name(Party)         Vote For[]             Vote Against[]

Is not confusing (and if it is, then there are bigger issues besides a negative voting system). 

The best counterpoint I can think of is that rank choice voting allows you to rank your preferred options, but they are still votes *for* someone in the end. If you are in a position where the options do not instill any confidence, RCV doesnt help you; all it does is allow you to rank your options from "dont care" to "dont want". But Negative voting can also be used in RCV as long as the whole ballot is a negative vote (i.e. you would rank them from "dont want" to "dont care" so that your negative vote applies just like someone elses positive vote). I do not advocate for a system that merges RCV positive and RCV negative votes; either the whole ballot is votes for OR votes against.

Theoretically, this could lead to a situation where all participants garner negative votes, but I feel that more people would still prefer to vote for somebody as opposed to against someone and so the chances of this are very slim. A negative vote option could help the minority of people who feel their vote *for* someone is unimportant that their negative vote would have more of an impact.

So let me know what you think: should a democracy allow for a "negative vote"? Would a "negative vote" severely impact the structure, function, and form of a democracy? Is giving a "negative vote" a logical conclusion in a democracy for total fairness (i.e. I can *vote for* or *not vote* or *spoil ballot*, but why should "vote against" be excluded from my options?)
gpt
Where i live, people vote in order of preference for political positions. There is pretty much never an election with just two people, and there are a lot of parties for a variety of political beliefs.

The voting system has a list of candidates listed in a random order, with their photos, names, and parties next to them. Next to each candidate is a box. You write a number next to the ones you like in order of how much you like them (1= first choice, highest number=last choice). If you don't like them, you don't write a number next to them at all. Could that be a better system than you suggest? checking two boxes seems like a great way to lead to confused ballots.