Introduction

My petition to Parliament is now live: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/757966.  It closes on 18 November 2026.

The rules give you a strict word count, which is why I don't explain more of the reasons and address some of the more obvious objections in the text itself

Petition

In each parliamentary election, I want the Government to add 'None of the above' to the list of constituency candidates. If that gets most votes, then none of the candidates is elected and the election must be run again around 6 weeks later, but none of the candidates from that first vote will be allowed to stand in the re-run election.

At present, nobody is able to express their dissatisfaction about the candidates standing in an election in any clear and meaningful way. They can choose to not vote, but this can be interpreted as apathy. They can spoil their ballot, but this has no clear meaning. We believe this proposal, as well as potentially changing the election result, provides a unique measure of public dissatisfaction.

Comment

Every year, more voters are disengaging with the political process.  This is one of the major problems facing democracy, not just in the UK (see https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7501/),  but also across the globe (see https://www.idea.int/news/credibility-elections-under-threat-worldwide).  The global average percentage of the voting age population who vote declined from 65.2% in 2008 to 55.5% in 2023.

We don't know why.

This proposal is almost zero cost, and it delivers real world information about one aspect of the political process which it is currently unavailable, and would be both difficult and expensive to attempt to uncover any other way.

In the real world, I would be astonished if 'None of the above' won more often than one in a thousand elections - probably far less. But it would give - for the first time ever - a real measure of voter dissatisfaction with the options presented to them, and that is something the political parties ought to be able to hear and respond to.

Objections

• If 'None of the Above' can force a whole election to be redone, you could get constant reruns, which would just create confusion, delay proper representation, and frustrate voters.
  
  How is this frustrating the voters, if this is what they voted for?  You only get a re-run if 'None of the above' actually wins.  And you would only get constant re-runs if all the parties constantly choose candidates which the people reject.  Don't you think they might be motivated to choose candidates the voters would support?
  
  And if the political parties are all choosing candidates who are so bad that the majority of voters would prefer none of them, don't you think that is something we ought to know about?
  
  
• This provides no guarantee of a better or clearer electoral result.
  
  In a sense, this is not about producing a better electoral result.  'Better', in this conetext, is hard to define anyway.  What it does is enable you to measure for the first time the level of voter unhappiness with the selection of candidates they have been offered.  'None of the above' can only win if there is a high level of voter unhappiness with the candidates, and the parties are all either ignorant or ignoring this.
  
  What actually happens is that, if the main parties all choose unpopular candidates, this opens the field for candidates from smaller parties and for 'Independents'.  The voters don't want another election, any more than the parties and candidates do, so they have a real incentive to find someone they are prepared to vote for.  If, despite all this, 'None of the above' wins, then you know you have a real problem.  But, at least, now you know.