I feel that voting should be mandatory, but a "no opinion" option should be provided for everything.
"none of the above" is a valid choice, and it would help politicians get a better picture for what the general population wants (instead of the current situation of "compared to X i want Y")
As long as we're wishing for changes in balloting, why not go whole hog and rank all the candidates in order of preference, including normalization entries for "Nobody (keep office vacant)", "Zero (I approve of everyone above this line, and no one below it)", and "Indifference (everyone below this line is ranked equally)"?
So I can vote {Nobody, Indifference, Zero, X, Y} if I think the office itself should be abolished. I can vote {Nobody, Zero, Indifference, X, Y} to say the office is stupid and that both the candidates for it suck. I can vote {Zero, Nobody, Indifference, X, Y} if I just don't like this crop of candidates. I can vote {Zero, X, Y, Nobody, Indifference} if I think X is the lesser of two evils, but either would be better than nothing. I can vote {X, Zero, Nobody, Y, Indifference} if I think X would be fine, but Y a bigger disaster than leaving the office empty. I can vote {Indifference, Nobody, X, Y, Zero} to say I don't care about this race at all.
If the default vote configuration starts at the "don't care" ordering, voters can drag the other entries up above the indifference line to indicate what they really care about.
...and then the politicians can more easily discern the will of the people that they can subsequently ignore completely, as usual.~
I absolutely agree. Ranked voting (it has a better name that i can't remember right now) is absolutely the way to go.
I'm not sure how I feel about the "Nobody"/"Zero" votes though. I can see where you are coming from, and they could have some use, but I think that would be the part that would throw some people over the edge of being confused by the system.
A simple "rank your candidates from best to worst, you can stop whenever you want" system is simple enough that everyone can get it, and solves a ton of problems with the current single-vote system we have now. Plus by putting nobody on the ballot (but still submitting it) you show "nobody" implicitly. (and you could even make it an explicit checkbox if you want)
I think what you're thinking of is called either Ranked Choice or Instant Runoff Voting. We're actually voting on a citizens' referendum in Maine (U.S.A.) to institute it here - part of the interest in it is due tot he fact that we've elected our Governor with less than 50% of the vote many times over the past 20 years or so, and our current governor (elected w/ 38% and 48% of the vote in respective terms) has been an embarrassment lately. We're going to make it applicable to state and federal offices (Reps and Senators) too.
We tend to have a lot of Independents and Greens run here (one of our current Senators is an Independent) and be successful. I'm really interested to see how it turns out.
I can't answer for the other person, but here's my reasoning.
abstinence from a vote is a form of social protest.
Voter turnout is fairly decent sign of voter confidence in the power of their vote to make a lasting change.
If you establish a form of mandatory voting, the state loses the feedback loop of 'non-voters' to establish voter confidence and also exerts another pressure on the citizenry; further hurting the citizens' feeling of self-control.
Basically, 'None' option or not, you're just taking another choice away from the voter.
Many tend not to remember this, but there are plenty of registered voters who don't show up or ever vote. This isn't necessarily a failure of voting advocates to get them in the booths, it may very well be an intentional protest on the part of the voter.
"none of the above" is a valid choice, and it would help politicians get a better picture for what the general population wants (instead of the current situation of "compared to X i want Y")