The media is not waiting until after the November general election to blame Libertarian Party candidates for Republican Party candidates’ upcoming losses. Indeed, Libertarian candidates are already being blamed for the Republicans’ potential failure to gain a majority in of the United States Senate. The Washington Post on Sunday published an article suggesting that Libertarian candidates could “spoil” Republicans’ chances of winning United States Senate races in eleven or more states, as well as some governor races.
Following an Associated Press article last month that erroneously suggested Libertarian governor candidate Ed Thompson caused the Republican incumbent Wisconsin governor to lose to the Democrat challenger in 2002, the Washington Post article points to Republican losses in the Virginia 2013 governor race and the 2006 and 2012 Montana US Senate races to support the assertion that Libertarian candidates are spoilers for Republicans.
What proof does the Washington Post article offer to advance this empirical argument? The Libertarian candidate received more votes than the number of votes by which the Democrat beat the Republican in each of those three races. That’s it — an underwhelming “argument” to say the least. The article seems to trust that readers believe the baseless, though widely repeated, characterization of libertarianism as a subset of conservatism.
Of course, not every person who voted for the Libertarian candidates in the Virginia and Montana races would have voted for the Republican in the respective races had there been no Libertarian option. The Washington Post does not give reason to suppose that even a majority of the Libertarian candidate supporters would have done so. Some of these voters would have voted for the Republican and others for the Democrat. A significant number may have chosen not to vote at all on election day or to vote on other matters on the ballot but not in the particular race.
Even an individual who votes for a Libertarian candidate and views the Republican in the race as the second-best option may not be counted on as a voter for the Republican if the favored candidate were not in the race. For some people, a candidate being marginally better is not good enough. If there is no candidate that meets a certain threshold, then no candidate will earn the vote.
Other voters who like a Libertarian or other “third party” candidate the most may nonetheless vote for the Republican or Democrat candidate who the voters determine is “good enough.” In these cases, voters choose to forego making a statement about who the best candidate is in order to try to play a part in deciding which candidate will win the immediate race or to send a message to the “major parties” regarding what kind of candidate can earn their votes.
Another group of voters will always or almost always choose a Republican or Democrat, viewing making any other choice as a “wasted vote.”
On the other end of the spectrum, other people will only show up at an election if there is a rare candidate who inspires them and then only vote for that candidate, leaving other races with blank or write-in votes.
The fundamental issue is that third party candidates, be they Libertarians, Greens, or whatever, are not stealing votes from Republican or Democrat candidates. The votes were never the property of one party or candidate to begin with. Votes, like cash, may be spent however a person subjectively determines is best. Excepting instances of illegal election tampering, success in elections depends on marketing a product people are willing to choose over other available choices.
My recent article “A Tipping Point For Liberty Against Leviathan” explores some issues that are likely to be important for many voters in the November elections:
Additionally, politicians should take heed of the apparent movement of public opinion in the US toward supporting a non-interventionist foreign policy and fearing big government. Indeed, last year public opposition helped prevent a US government attack on Syria and helped encourage the US House to nearly pass an amendment to significantly undercut the NSA’s mass spying. This happened despite the Obama Administration and bipartisan congressional leadership lining up on the opposing side in both instances.
Maybe, if some “third party” campaigns do better in the November elections than in past years, it will be because some voters see these campaigns as resonating with this movement in public opinion. If that is the case, “major party” candidates could better spend their time learning from their competitors’ success than blaming them.
Clay,
Thanks for the extra links. They further spell out what I was referring to above.
Are you taking into account that the old system elected 5 members of the LNC (At large) on the same ballot and 7 members of JC on another separate single ballot? That seems relevant to me.
George,
Wasn’t that also true of the prior system? In both cases, I remember people advising me to bullet vote, ie vote for a smaller number of people than seats available.
Approval voting rapidly turns to bullet ballot voting with intelligent voters.
I personally support the Cambridge MA scheme, which gives as many voters as possible the chance to say “I know who my person on the city council is, including minority factions.
> there is no spoiler issue in either the old or new way of LNC/JC elections
Paulie,
That is incorrect. Your old system certainly failed Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives and the Favorite Betrayal Criterion, the two mathematical criteria that basically define the spoiler effect.
Here’s a simple example of how a runoff system fails:
35% left > center > right
33% right > center > left
32% center > others
In the first round, center is eliminated. Left and right face off in the runoff round. But the centrist would obliterate either opponent if either other opponent weren’t present. You could think of left and right as each being a spoiler here.
Clay Shentrup
Co-founder, The Center for Election Science
> Approval voting is a method of guaranteeing that the most moderate, most inoffensive candidates win.. It eliminates candidates with strong support and strong opposition, even if the strength of their support is (in some sense, given the impossibility of comparing subjective valuations) greater than the strength of their opposition, in aggregate.
This is a common myth. Approval Voting, under sensible voter tactics, tends to elect Condorcet winners (candidates who would beat each rival by a majority).
http://scorevoting.net/AppCW.html
It also leaves voters pleasantly surprised:
http://scorevoting.net/PleasantSurprise.html
More specifically, Approval Voting has lower Bayesian regret than most other systems, and a rational agent wants to maximize his expected utility, making Approval Voting a very good option.
ScoreVoting.net/BayRegsFig.html
The ranked voting systems suffer from severe vulnerability to tactical behavior, which is a much bigger problem. E.g.
http://ScoreVoting.net/NESD.html
http://ScoreVoting.net/DH3.html
http://ScoreVoting.net/CondBurial.html
Clay Shentrup
Co-founder, The Center for Election Science
You should read up the materials at leastevil.blogspot.com on why it isn’t the best way to go.
I prefer instant run off voting.
See http://leastevil.blogspot.com/2013/03/cross-posted-to-my-lovely-wifes-web.html and http://leastevil.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-do-you-mean-by-best.html
While approval voting may favor less offensive candidates it also allows people to vote their approval for us without fears of “spoiling” it for their “lesser evil.” It also has higher voter satisfaction than other voting methods.
I disagree with your apparent operating hypothesis that the reason Starchild was no re-elected was because of the new voting system. I predicted he would not get a second term before the convention, and still stand by my assessment that he would have lost for another term under the previous election method also.
However, I do agree with you that the approval voting method we adopted in the new bylaws has major flaws. This is dfferent from the type of approval elections I was discussing earlier in this thread. The new LP election method is clunky because we are choosing 5 LNC members and 7 JudCom members with NOTA on the ballot. That means that we could have less than 5 LNC At large and/or less than 7 JC members elected, even zero. And in the case of JC there woud be no way to fill the vacancies. In fact, we already violated the new bylaw by having the coin toss between Guy and Doug whhen in fact neither one got over 50% approval, so technically we should have not seated either of them and perhaps had another round of voting. But no one was going to do that after the hours the first vote count took. That’s an implementation problem of learning how to apply a new system in practice.
As the hall emptied out, leaving a disproportionate percentage of the remaining delegates from Ohio and Indiana, they were able to squeeze out a majority on JC, albeit a 4-3 on.
This is a flawed system, and not analogous to the spoiler issue we discussed here (there is no spoiler issue in either the old or new way of LNC/JC elections).
I agree!
George, there are some who say the Whigs are still running candidates called Republicans. The Whigs never left politics.
Paulie – I disagree, for reasons I now regret not stating at the convention. Approval voting is a method of guaranteeing that the most moderate, most inoffensive candidates win – it may work in a society that understands the importance of liberty, but not in ours. It eliminates candidates with strong support and strong opposition, even if the strength of their support is (in some sense, given the impossibility of comparing subjective valuations) greater than the strength of their opposition, in aggregate. It is very useful for, say, deciding where a group of people shall eat dinner, or choosing toppings for pizza. In politics – need I say more than “Starchild?”
On spoiling – libertarians have nothing in common with conservatives, and especially with Republicans. There is no reason to assume that libertarians should prefer Republicans in office over Democrats, no reason to think that Libertarian votes would have otherwise gone to Republicans, and nothing at all of attraction in the Republican Party for libertarians. If we “spoil” their victory, good. If we spoil a Democrat victory, good. I don’t care either way. Are there differences between the parties? Maybe – and if there are, it’s in the Democrats favor, but too small to even be noticeable as regards a libertarian mindset.
However, Republicans making these claims seem to think there is some commonality. If so, let them act on their erroneous belief, and drop out of hotly contested races to endorse their Libertarian opponents.
Good article and comments. George’s line about the Federalists and Whigs really made me smile. 🙂 🙂
This canard about us stealing their votes (as if votes belong to the candidates and parties rather than the voters) is pathetic. The lesser of two evils is evil, plain and simple. Most Sarvis voters said the Democrat victor McCuliff (sp.) was their second choice. We appeal to voters from both sides of the political spectrum who are sick of two sides of the same warfare/welfare philosophy and want something better.
Similar piece on Alternet a few days ago. They really hate us, except that they think we will cause the R’s to lose more and their vaunted liberal D’s will be the beneficiaries.
Or approval voting, which has higher voter satisfaction, actually.
I believe the counter point to having spoilers year after year after year… is to move to ranked choice voting. Instant run off elections and require a majority to win an election.
Maybe more.
That’s for sure!
One of the problems of races like the 2012 Senate race in Montana, you have the Republican talking about the need to reduce spending, while voting to increase the national debt. The Libertarian was just better on the issues and had he beed in more debates, would have had 8 percent of the vote. We don’t need more John McCain’s in Washington.
If the Republican Party of warmongers and antiabortionist daughter-killers is tired of having their candidates lose, there is a simple solution: Stop running candidates. It worked for the Federalists and the Whigs, and it will work for you Republicans, too.
“We will always get the blame.” -Steven Wilson // Some folks will always continue to blame someone for their failure to inspire. We will win when enough folks stop tolerating that as an excuse.
The Libertarian Party has certainly become terrifying to many. many people–I love it!
Voters have a choice. They could vote for establishment corporatist candidate “A” (complete with Goldman Sachs approval,) or they could vote for establishment corporatist candidate “A” (complete with Goldman Sachs approval,) Candidate “A” or Candidate”A” will say that Libertarians have destroyed his/her chances to bring about change to the US political structure. However, what the media, and Candidate “A” fails to realize is that there is no difference between Candidate “A” and Candidate”A.” If there were, then Candidate “A” would have a much better chance at winning election/re-election based on his / her own merits.
People, come election time, vote for the lesser candidate that the Democrats and Republicans endorse, because that is what they have always done. However, now that this is changing, and the people are starting to wake up and realize that it may be time to look at each problem from a completely different perspective, those of us with a view contrary to the lesser candidate’s position will be blamed for the failure of that candidate to win, and implement the “lesser strategy.”
I, for one, am thrilled to be the cause of the “lesser” strategy’s failure, because, by definition, it is not good for the people in general, or our state/nation as a whole.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the better idea to succeed, and we have work to do! Let the media and Candidate ”A” complain about their failure, to the rafters while WE concentrate on fixing the roof so that it does not leak on them while they are complaining!
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
Vote your conscious was a rallying cry once upon a time, but after Nader got reamed by the media and got the blame for W it all came crashing down.
In marketing, it really doesn’t go well. In politic it is used wisely. In the past few cycles the Republicans have been attacking voters and using fright: If you vote your conscious then we all lose!
In Missouri we had a democrat openly rally for voters to hit the button for the Libertarians. Obviously this was a ballot trick but it seemed to work. At least for one party.
We will always get the blame. Every time I have been a candidate I always maintained the same message and tone.
You vote for the lesser of two evils then that is what you did. I promote accountability. It works for me.
The idea of Libertarians spoiling has, well, spoiled.
With issues like marijuana legalization, deregulation of ride-sharing services like Uber & Lyft, and putting an end to NSA spying, the Libertarians are on one side (with the people) and both old parties are on the other. For voters on those issues, neither old party is a viable option.