Let vote count again

I have been holding my nose and voting for the lesser of two evils for various political offices for decades. In the past few years, I have had to do that in so many cases that I can’t seem to breathe.

More recently still, I find most candidates to be so wrongheaded that I have trouble finding even a lesser of two evils that I can stomach. I can’t support the alt-right-wingers or the Trump cultists that are attempting to disenfranchise the majority of voters in order to keep power in their own selfish hands. Nor can I support the so-called “progressives” who apparently think most Americans are either too lazy or too stupid or both to live their lives without government interference, so they want our government to “take care of” that majority—that is, our very inefficient and bureaucratic government. There are probably a few U.S. citizens that are lazy or stupid, but they are in the minority; most of us are quite capable of living a pretty good life without government oversight.

I would like my vote—and the votes of many reasonable centrists—to count again. I suggest that can happen by adding one more choice to the slate for every office: “None of the Above.” The usual dissent to this idea is that it would cost too much money to have repeated elections. While I think it would be worth the cost to reclaim our democracy, I suspect there are probably ways to get around this.

Our politicians have shown that they can be very creative when it comes to achieving their agendas—wrongheaded as they are—so let them turn their minds to solving the problem.

RENEE HUNTER

Conway