in UK Parliament a vote of no confidence (which is cast by MPs rather than popular vote, but still, a possible example), leads to the current parliament being dissolved and a new general election being scheduled for the near future. Canadian parliament is similar. In the German government an analogous procedure exists, except the general election is not an obligatory outcome.
in these parliamentary systems its a way to avoid total deadlock where the executive and legislature cannot come to terms. this is obviously a problem we suffer from acutely in the U.S. right now. however, that's a somewhat different scenario than what we're discussing here specifically, where the no confidence vote would come directly from the popular vote instead of as a parliamentary procedure.
In the context of a popular general election, this would be similar to failure to form a quorum, meaning no participant in the election can be considered to have a mandate or consent of the governed.
what would it mean for this outcome to "win" the election? Clearly that the procedures that nominated candidates for office had malfunctioned and that none of the nominated candidates are satisfactory to a sufficient slice of the electorate. This would be a protection against a form of oligarchy or minority rule. I think the reasons for considering this are abundantly clear in the U.S. in 2016.
what should happen as a result of a general no confidence result? my suggestion would be a special election where the candidates of the previous election are barred from being re-nominated. if the special election also failed to select a candidate with a mandate to govern then it should automatically trigger a constitutional convention, since that would represent a PROFOUND failure to represent the people and would need to be resolved by extraordinary means.
in these parliamentary systems its a way to avoid total deadlock where the executive and legislature cannot come to terms. this is obviously a problem we suffer from acutely in the U.S. right now. however, that's a somewhat different scenario than what we're discussing here specifically, where the no confidence vote would come directly from the popular vote instead of as a parliamentary procedure.
In the context of a popular general election, this would be similar to failure to form a quorum, meaning no participant in the election can be considered to have a mandate or consent of the governed.
what would it mean for this outcome to "win" the election? Clearly that the procedures that nominated candidates for office had malfunctioned and that none of the nominated candidates are satisfactory to a sufficient slice of the electorate. This would be a protection against a form of oligarchy or minority rule. I think the reasons for considering this are abundantly clear in the U.S. in 2016.
what should happen as a result of a general no confidence result? my suggestion would be a special election where the candidates of the previous election are barred from being re-nominated. if the special election also failed to select a candidate with a mandate to govern then it should automatically trigger a constitutional convention, since that would represent a PROFOUND failure to represent the people and would need to be resolved by extraordinary means.