Voters to Decide if ‘None of the Above’ Is a Ballot Option
California voters will decide next year whether they want a new option when they go to the polls--casting a ballot for “none of the above.”
An initiative by Al Shugart of Pebble Beach, the 68-year-old chief of a venture capital firm in Soquel, Calif., to offer voters that option has qualified for the March 7, 2000 ballot, the secretary of state’s office said Thursday.
If approved by voters, the initiative would affect California elections for office from president to the state Legislature. It would allow voters who don’t like the candidates to vote for “none of the above.”
However, if “none of the above” got the most votes, the top candidate would win the office.
Shugart modeled his initiative after an option Nevada voters have had since 1976. It is not his first protest against what he believes are a wasteful government and politicians obsessed with partisan politics.
In 1996, he tried to run Ernest, his 120-pound dog, for Congress in Monterey. Election officials ruled that Ernest wasn’t qualified, but Ernest still got 2,001 write-in votes, Shugart claims.
Shugart’s initiative campaign this year was run by what he called “Friends of Ernest Political Action Committee.”
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