> or that someone who would not authorize something like this would literally not be allowed to show up on the ballot?
I'm surprised that you've never encountered this persepective before, it seems a very common one to me.
The first thing I think about is the South Park episode in which the elementary school had to vote for a school mascot and they were given the choice of either "a giant douche" or "a turd sandwich".
The second thing is another South Park episode (circa 2009), for which they actually produced two episodes (and aired one) for the Presidential election between McCain and Obama. Regardless of who would win, the plot was the same: the winner colludes with the loser in a National Treasure-style heist, with the election just being part of the setup.
In the latter example, the message seems to be that it doesn't matter who wins because the same outcomes occur. The former example probably doesn't need explaining.
Anyway, yeah, it would be nice to choose something better than a turd sandwich but when the other option is a giant douche, what is there to do? The way I see it, you either vote for someone who you know stands no chance (Jill Stein, btw), don't vote at all, or vote for the turd sandwich (or the giant douche, if that's your persuasion).
I guess I wasn't clear: I'm aware there are people who think that the choice doesn't really matter. That's very different than people literally being blocked from appearing on the ballots at all (which some people in sibling comments have cited some references to I'll need to look into more), and even that's different from them refusing to count votes and declare a winner if they did actually receive the most votes but don't fit the status quo.
As far as the one real-world example you gave goes, I'm not convinced that someone who feels the need to avoid making definitive statements about whether vaccines cause autism is a great example of someone who wants to effect meaningful change rather than play the politics game, but that's mostly an orthogonal point.