A New Reality Voting

I’d like to propose a new voting style for future reality shows. Not that there’s anything wrong with the existing way in which the public gets a certain number of votes to use in voting for their favorite person or to share across a few of their favorites. After all, that’s the “American Way,” isn’t it? You can vote for your favorite, or, depending on how you want to look at it, vote for the lesser of two evils. No matter which way you slice it though, you’re voting for the best.

What if we changed it up a little? Sure, if there are judges involved with the show, their votes can still count for half of the points required to stay in the game. But judges aside, twist things up a little and don’t allow for all the votes to go towards the favorites. Let’s bring negative votes into the picture. Not only do you get a limited number of votes to use towards those you want to see move forward, but you get the same number of votes to use against those who you don’t want to see continue on.

Every vote would still tally up one by one, but every negative vote does just what it’s name implies, it takes a vote away from the contestant. In theory it’s possible for one, or more, contestants to end up with a negative number of votes. Now, instead of “throwing away” your votes to someone who was really only mediocre in your mind you can use your negative votes to voice just how miserable you thought someone else was.

So, who’s up for the challenge? Dancing with the Stars? American Idol? Maybe a new series that hasn’t come out yet? I’d like to challenge all the networks to be the first to implement this change in the voting.

Granted, I doubt we’ll ever be able to cast negative votes in a political election. But that’s a thought and dream for another time…