The short answer? No. The long answer…

The way we run elections is so familiar that it's hard to imagine any other way to do it. You look at a list of options, you choose the name that you want, and the person with the most votes wins—that's how you vote, right?

If you do a little research, though, you'll discover that there are a lot of ways you can run an election, some with names like "ranked voting" or "single transferrable vote." Many of these systems work very differently from what we're used to.

Including a "none of the above" option is actually one of the least radical changes we could make to our elections. It doesn't take away any choices that are already available, and it doesn't have to change how votes are counted.

It's also not a new idea. Since 1975, all state-wide elections in Nevada (including President and Vice President) have featured a "None of the Candidates" option; the state actually changed its laws to require the option (read about it in this Washington Post story).

In addition to Nevada, several countries either currently have or used to have a ballot option equivalent to "none of the above." Individual candidates and whole parties dedicated to NOTA idea also exist.

NOTA could work in several different ways. The simplest would be to tally these votes together and treat them as protest votes that couldn't affect the outcome of an election. If NOTA received more votes than any actual candidate, the person with the next highest number of votes would be elected. However, they would take office with the clear message that more voters disliked all the candidates available than actually chose the winner.

With this approach, there also would be the option of including NOTA votes in the total of all votes cast. If we did so, when election results were reported, each candidate would have a lower percentage of the vote than they would if NOTA votes were left out.

We could also write NOTA laws to be more punitive in nature. Some suggest that if NOTA receives more votes than anyone else, no candidate should take office. Instead, a new election would be held, presumably with different candidates.

No—but then again you should be suspicious when anyone tells you they have the answer to all your problems. Just to be clear, though: adding "none of the above" to our ballots won't suddenly get rid of legislative gridlock or disagreements between parties. It's not a recipe for instant political harmony.

However, adding NOTA as a separately reported option in elections will help improve the quality of our democracy. The complexities of our political system make it far too easy for politicians and elected leaders to downplay or even ignore political dissatisfaction.

At the moment, dissent becomes invisible on election day because voters either choose the least offensive candidate or simply stay home. Non-voting is particularly bad for political dissent because it makes it impossible to tell the difference between apathy and actual dissatisfaction.

Definitely not. To understand why, we need to talk about why people vote.

When some people vote, they make their choice by guessing what the future holds. Which candidate has made promises that I like? More importantly, which candidate has a chance of getting elected and following through on those promises? Sometimes a voter might ignore the candidate they like the most and make a strategic vote for someone else if they think that second candidate has a better chance of succeeding. From this point of view, any vote that doesn't "get you want you want" is a wasted vote.

But that's not the only way to think about voting. For many voters, election day is an opportunity to make a sincere statement about their political beliefs and choices. From this perspective, the only way to waste a vote is to make a choice you don't truly believe in.

If you vote for strategic reasons, our current system works just fine. Sincere voters, however, face a problem: if you honestly believe that none of the candidates deserves your vote, there is no official way to register that opinion.

The right to vote must include the freedom to choose your own reason for voting. But if you happen to be a sincere, politically dissatisfied voter, our system deprives you of that right.

If you were to close your eyes you could easily imagine a "typical" voter for either of the two major parties (maybe even for some of the minor parties as well). But what does a typical NOTA voter "look" like?

Political parties usually form around a set of ideological principles. Because some are held very strongly, they polarize the population—and parties form on opposite sides of the issue.

By contrast, voters are drawn to NOTA for one of two reasons, neither of which has to be polarizing. Some voters are attracted by our basic premise: that to be truly fair, elections need to provide voters a way to express dissatisfaction.

Others, after thoughtful consideration of the choices before them, decide that none are acceptable. Without a "none of the above option," these voters must either choose a candidate they don't believe in or choose not to vote at all.

What this means is that there is no such thing as a "NOTA voter." People of all different political persuasions can find common ground in wanting a system and political choices that are better than those we have.

It's tempting to dodge the question by pointing out the size of the challenge ahead of us. But since this is a serious campaign, I think the question deserves a serious answer.

Ours is a protest campaign—a protest against the current state of affairs in American politics and a suggestion that we need a better way to do things. The ultimate sign of protest would be to refuse the office of president or to resign after taking the oath of office.

While appealing on many levels, refusing to serve would have consequences. Without a president or vice president, the line of succession would pass to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This would effectively hand the presidency to one of the two major parties (whichever held control of the House after the fall elections).

Because the speaker is chosen by the members of the House in their own private election, the only voices with an ultimate say in choosing the president would be the 250–300 members of the majority party in the House. In addition to being shockingly undemocratic, the potential for partisan politics to block the selection of a new president could usher in a constitutional crisis.

For that reason, a successful NOTA campaign would be followed by a NOTA presidential administration—regardless of the challenges it would face in a system dominated by the two major parties.