“How can you throw your vote away?” That’s a question most third-party advocates and supporters of independent candidates hear quite often. Some of my friends are asking it of me, and I’m sure many of you are hearing it as well. And it’s a question I have asked of myself, and of others, over the years. This is my answer.
As readers know, I try to be a realist and a pragmatist, so first, let me concede some points:
So, it seems logical to conclude that voting for someone other than John McCain or Barack Obama this year would be reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible, right? Well, not necessarily.
Like many who do not plan to vote for either major party ticket, I have a preference as to which I’d rather see win (or, more accurately, which I want to lose more). I’m not oblivious to the differences between the two, or to the fact that the candidate I plan to vote for will not win. But perversely, because our system is biased against alternative candidates, I have the luxury of being able to vote for one.
The Electoral College system makes the emergence of two dominant parties inevitable, as does our non-parliamentary legislative structure — where majorities are required, two forces capable of competing for “50 percent plus one” will emerge. But two centuries of gerrymandering and cultural and demographic changes have left many states one-party enterprises, at least on the presidential level.
To be more blunt, if you live in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, or Wyoming, you can vote for whoever the heck you want to — each is leaning so heavily to either McCain or Obama that you are free to vote your conscience. And if you are not one of the 120 million-odd Americans who lives in one of those places, you may still be in a state where the outcome will not be that close; that’s actually a cautious list.
Okay, you may say, but that does not mean a third-party vote makes more sense than a vote for a major party candidate. But perhaps it does. For the folks in those states where the result is a near-certainty, the choice is not between a “real” vote and a “wasted” vote. Rather, it is between a superfluous vote for or against a sure winner, or a vote that sends a message. In California in 2004, for example, Libertarian U.S. Senate nominee Jim Gray, a Superior Court judge who opposes the War on Drugs, received more than 216,000 votes — not enough to sway the election, but enough to send a strong message.
At the same time, though, only about 46,000 Californians voted for the Libertarian presidential nominee, Michael Badnarik — even though John Kerry defeated George W. Bush in the state by more than one million votes. That means there were 170,000 Gray voters who could have voted for Badnarik without having any impact on the electoral vote allocation. And how many more libertarian-minded Kerry and Bush voters “wasted their votes” by making Kerry’s margin one vote larger or smaller?
Far from being a “waste”, if you live in a deep-red or deep-blue state, casting a vote for an alternative candidate may be a way to have your cake and eat it, too: to vote your beliefs, indicate your displeasure with the two-party system, and send a message — without the fear of swinging the election to the greater of two evils.
My latest favorite quote of all time:
“It is better to vote for what you want and not get it – than to vote for what you don’t want and get it.” Eugene V. Debs
I agree with that. Just look at my first comment here.
Ross, even if we count the spoiler argument as a valid one, it’s effect on the past few elections is a drop in the bucket compared to other much larger factors.
With the most successful third party candidates, most of their votes come from non-voters and those that would have voted for a major party candidate are nothing compared to Democrats voting for Republicans and vice versa.
We shouldn’t feed the false notion that the votes originally belonged in one of the two major piles and that we skim from those piles.
FiveThirtyEight.com is probably a better source for projections than RealClearPolitics or Zogby. The numbers over there even more clearly support the point of your post.
In my state it looks like me and a couple million of my friends could vote for Barr without having any impact on the electoral vote.
Mike – it is true, however, that third party candidates have swung elections (if not recent presidential elections).
Well, the “Gore would have won if not for Nader” is a concession and a false and costly one.
If we want to get people to vote third party, that’s the argument we need to fully debunk, not bolster.
That’s why I like the Ni4D…
Yeah, the old “well only one candidate is going to win so even with only two parties you’d still have a 50% chance of picking a loser” argument.
This “non-voter” mindset, though, seems a bit different. “Why bother voting for GOP/Dem — it doesn’t make any difference who wins. And why bother voting for anyone else, since they won’t win anyway.”
Extremely frustrating.
“This essay is intended to respond to intelligent non-third-party voters who have concerns about how casting a third-party vote might be detrimental during a close election.”
I understand that, Peter, but I feel that some of your arguments actually bolster anti-third party arguments rather than debunk them.
Which is why I agreed with Trent’s criticisms of the essay. I think there are better arguments than basically conceding to false points like this.
Great post and discussion…
If I’m reading this right, you seem to be addressing someone who is in fact going to vote, but deciding between going with a Dem/GOP vs. a 3rd party…
You next assignment — how do we convince people to get up off their ass and actually vote for a third party rather than just stay at home since “they’re not going to win anyway, why should I waste my time…?”
Great post, Peter. You hit the nail on the head.
However, the second point that you concede could be argued. There is so much disenfranchisement and voting machine flaws in modern elections that it’s not third party candidates that are tipping the balance. They are insignificant in that sense on the presidential scale. It’s things like 1.1 million voters being purged from Indiana’s list of registered voters, and a machine in Florida counting -16,000 votes, and all of the optical scan machines in a county in NM going 100% for Bush, and Republicans putting up posters in poor areas listing the wrong voting day, and people having to wait 12(!!!) hours to vote. Those are the things “tipping the balance,” not a legitimate candidacy.
If it serves to drive traffic,then yes. =)
I plan on starting a series of History posts. I had tried to convince Darcy Richardson, our resident historian, to do it–but I suspect he is too busy.
In 1968, a dime was still theoretically worth 1/350 ounce of gold. That’s $2.48 in today’s fiat money.
I’d say the difference between the two parties is less than the penny that costs more to produce than it’s worth — and that’s a fitting metaphor.
I agree Peter. It may be easier to start recruiting in states that aren’t swing states though: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/whos-ahead/key-states/map.html
Not a bad idea rdupuy.
I support
Ralph Nader 2008
(wish it could have been Barr)
In my opinion, there is a lot of sophistication around this issue. People are not unaware of third parties, they have quite a bit of ‘folklore’ around them, that they can repeat on command.
But strip away all the sophistication, and in the end they very much support the two party system, which they believe is as american as apple pie.
Try this as an experiment, on every post you make from now until election day, whether its here, or Washington Post, or CBS News, or Yahoo Finance (some of my favorites), always end with your declared support of your candidate.
———————-
I support
Bob Barr 2008
———————
In my opinion this will demonstrate the main issue with joining a 3rd party – the real one – that they are trying to avoid.
The chance of your one vote being the deciding vote is far less than your chances of spontaneously combusting. Anyone who votes for that reason is a moron.
Myopic? What’s the difference between Obama and McCain, other than perception? 4.5 percentage points on the top tax rate?
Supreme Court nominees? Puh-lease. They will both appoint liberal activist judges who exalt the executive and centralize power with the feds.
The country’s financial system is collapsing. They both want more of the problem that has caused it. Both are pro-Fed and thus neither will stop or even slow America’s merciful descent into ruin.
The only thing going for Obama is that his victory will be perceived positively by the world’s people. That is enough for me to root for his victory, but to suggest there’s any real policy difference is quite ignorant of the true problems and nature of government.
I think we spend too much time engaging people on their reasons, instead of realizing their reasons are absolute bullcrud.
Most people don’t know how to express themselves, want to be frank and concede something? They aren’t voting 3rd party, because they have no intention of voting 3rd party, they believe in the two major parties.
Thats the fact of the matter. All the reasons they feed, are ultimately just trying to defend that position in a polite way, or a way that will be perceived as intelligent, or might get you to stop yapping at them.
3rd party candidates just need to build their core support, and not really worry about engaging people about their ‘reasons’.
Get the name well known, get the feeling of momentum going, demonstrate how you have the power to help. The usual things in politics, do it better and better. Thats it.
A small third party has to concentrate on one thing and one thing only, building the base of people who donate.
“Well, a dime is worth less today than it did in 1980.”
Did that phrase originate in 1980? I thought it first poked its head out in the 1968 election via George Wallace?
I should organize a “Best of Orvetti” thing. Too bad some went down with Orvetti Factor.
😀
I concur with Trent on those two points.
There were so many factors in Florida that it’s really impossible to say how it would have gone had Nader not run. And the largest factors – fighting for a full recount, the lackluster Gore campaign, Lieberman as VP, the deplorable actions of Harris and the Supreme Court deciding the election – were all out of Nader’s hands.
Bush was a bumbling and inarticulate boob with a bad record running against an incumbent vice president of a largely popular president.
It was his election to lose and he blew it.
I refuse to concede the “spoiler” argument, especially because a plurality of Nader’s 2000 votes came from people who said they wouldn’t have voted for either Bush OR Gore, and 25% came from people who would have voted for Bush.
Not to mention the fact that over a quarter of a million FL Democrats voted for Bush, or that half of the registered Dems didn’t even vote.
These sorts of numbers dwarf any possible votes Nader won that would have otherwise voted for Gore.
And I agree too, with Trent’s statement above the “dime’s worth” of difference. Well, a dime is worth less today than it did in 1980.
The biggest difference between the two parties is their RHETORIC. And even that isn’t so different. They take “sliding scale” stances on various issues, rather than opposing ones.
They both support attacks on civil liberties to slightly varying degress. They both support the war in Iraq and potential war with Pakistan or Iran to slightly varying degrees. They both support the war on drugs to slightly varying degrees. They both support subsidies and large bailouts for huge corporations to slightly varying degrees. They both support the death penalty to slightly varying degrees.
And even on the one remaining issue that they even take a hard rhetorical stance – abortion – they do little different in practice.
Abortion and the Supreme Court is the last carrot and stick that these parties use to hold on to peoples’ votes. And both parties are perfectly fine with the status quo.
Because the Dems can scare pro-choice voters into thinking that unless they vote Democrat for president, the GOP will overturn Roe; and likewise the GOP implies to their supporters if they just vote GOP one last time, they can overturn Roe.
But even when they lose, the pro-choice Dems in the Senate will vote for reactionary pro-life justices for confirmation, and the Senate GOP will vote for pro-choice ones.
In the end, even the rhetorical difference between these parties has atrophied so much that we’re down to arguing vitriolically over inches, while major issues and problems and solutions remain unaddressed.
That’s the reality of our two party scam.
And I won’t concede for a moment that there is any meaningful end-results difference between them.
I’ve written this essay three times now: once on behalf of Harry Browne (1996); once as a speech for NOTA at the LP Con (2000, in opposition to the Browne/Cloud redux); and once before the convention in 2004 (reminding people their vote could count, or at least send a message, in that nomination … little did I know the effect that might have!).
The ONLY reason for voting for President is to express your own choice, so you can look at yourself in the mirror for the next 4 years! As Peter’s post notes, in about half the states it can’t affect to the outcome, in about another third it won’t matter noticeably … and even in the “showdown states” your one vote is not going to make the difference over an entire state!
So vote your heart and your mind, not your fear! As for me, in Tennessee, I get to vote for myself … as a proud BTP elector. Inasmuch as every time before this I have punched the “L” button (write ins in 1972, sticker in ’76, actual ballot status the rest of the time, as LP or independent depending on the state laws), it took a lot to get me off that track this time …
Meanwhile, on a larger (call it spiritual?) level, the messages we send about our intentions, when we are acting from a negative energy (oh god, not HIM, or HER!!) speaks to emphasize what we are trying to avoid, and says HIM (or HER) louder than the “not”! It’s part o why we keep electing evils, “lesser” or not ,,,)
whether you think on that level is up to you, but the evidence shows that until we change course the Duopoly War Party never changes …
“There is far more than “a dime’s worth of difference†between the Democratic and Republican national tickets this year, especially considering that the philosophical direction of the Supreme Court for the next quarter-century or more could be determined during the next presidential administration. To pretend that there would be no difference between President McCain and President Obama is myopic at best, and willfully ignorant at worst.”
I heartily disagree with this statement. At least from the libertarian or paleoconservative position–both men are driving at socialism, one slightly slower than the other. As for Judges–always remember that 7 of the 9 Supreme Court justices are Republicans and that 2 of the 3 Judges in the California case that outlawed homeschooling were Republicans.
“Third-party candidates have tipped the balance in key elections recently. It is probable that if Ralph Nader had not been on Florida’s ballot in 2000, Al Gore would have become president in January 2001. It is also possible, though harder to be sure of, that Ross Perot’s 1992 candidacy tipped that election to Bill Clinton. ”
It is incorrect to state that if Ralph Nader had not been on the ballot in Florida in 2000,then Al Gore probably would have won. Richard Winger has done some excellent research on this that proves that Florida actually might’ve gone to Bush instead
I live in a “purple” state, and I don’t feel compelled to vote for McBama, no matter how close the race between Obama & McCain. I know who I’d like to see win between those two, but I don’t feel like I should vote for “least worst.”
Very good post!
I could imagine why one might get strategic with a municipal election, but for president of the States? There is dead zero chance of holding the deciding vote regardless of your state. So why not just vote from the heart?
This is an excellent post. I hope it gets read widely.
The solution has already been figured out but is not getting traction. Either The Progressive Alliance Strategy keeping the Libertarian & Green parties or create Milsted’s “new upper left” party- a Progressive party equivelent. Constitution & Socialist parties not included. Perhaps as caucuses.
marginally related but excellent quote from the late David Foster Wallce…
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18420304/the_weasel_twelve_monkeys_and_the_shrub/print
The problem is Duverger’s Law. The sooner the minor parties stop their infighting and start figuring out ways to end the single member plurality district the better.