[dragonwriter]

No Confidence is a term of art for a vote against the government in power (usually, specifically in the content of a parliamentary system, in a vote by parliament, though arguably a public recall vote of the head of government in a non-parliamentary system is a fairly direct analog, and any vote against an incumbent in any system is a loose analog, as are mechanisms that aren't formally votes of No Confidence of removal-of-existing-incumbents-by-legislative action.)

You (or your MP or other legislative representative) can usually do some or all of these things in most systems that are recognized as democracies.

What you seem to want is something different, the option to vote for No Representative in a regular election and cause the office to be vacant when the next term would start (whether this actually leaves the office vacant or triggers the usual succession mechanism that would apply if it had been filled and then became vacant through death, resignation, etc. is unclear.) This, I can't see a coherent argument for.

[metaphorm]

yes, understood that No Confidence has historically referred to a parliamentary procedure.

I think the term is appropriate here as well but might be problematic because of its historical usage. Avoiding confusion or conflation is a good thing, so maybe a different term should be used for this situation.

I think your suggestion of No Representation is a decent one. I'm not suggesting that that should result in an unfilled office though. My view is that if No Representation actually wins (takes the plurality of the vote), it should trigger a special election where new candidates must be nominated and a new popular vote must be held.

[dragonwriter]

> I'm not suggesting that that should result in an unfilled office though.

I don't think anything else is even remotely reasonable, in the end.

> My view is that if No Representation actually wins (takes the plurality of the vote), it should trigger a special election where new candidates must be nominated and a new popular vote must be held.

A special election is a not-uncommon vacancy-filling mechanism, but I think you are still going to have to accept vacancies caused by a No Representative win if you want the option at all: by design, elections are usually proximate in time to the end of the term -- the two month time between US federal general elections and the start of Congressional terms is about the length usually specified for a special election, leaving no time to actually tabulate and certify election results before the next term would start, and even if you can squeeze in one special election between the regular election and the start of the term, what happens if you get a No Representative win in the second election? Or does the supposed "democratic right" to vote against all candidates only apply once per cycle (and if it does, why do you think you'll get more acceptable candidates in the second try)?

[filoeleven]

I have most frequently seen this option called "None of the Above". A special election consisting of all new candidates seems like the best practice for when NOTA wins an election.