In the 2004 election, in New York state, I had the chance to vote for:
John Kerry (Democratic Party)
George Bush (Republican Party)
John Kerry (Working Families Party)
George Bush (Some Other Party I Forget The Name Of)
Both Bush and Kerry were on the ballot twice with different party names. Was this a scam? If I accidentally voted for the Working Families Party Kerry instead of the Democratic Party Kerry, would that have not counted? Or are they the same person?
If it is the same person, then why do both parties feel the need to put a candidate on the ballot? Why didn’t the Working Families Party simply remove their name from the ballot so as not to confuse people?
New York allows multiple parties to endorse candidates. All the votes received by a candidate count towards election regardless of party. So if Kerry won more votes on both the WFP and Democratic ticket than Bush got from the Republicans and the Conservatives, he wins NY.
I imagine that it gives small parties the ability to have their say. Candidates seek the endorsement of the various parties to increase their ability to win votes. The WFP has an agenda that it feels is sufficiently different from the Democrats and will only offer an endorsement if it feels the candidate closely enough represents its views.
If Kerry for instance had not won the WFP endorsement, and the race was sufficiently close, that loss of votes to WFP stalwarts could cost him the state. Clearly that didn’t happen, but its certainly the intent.
I don’t have the specifics but it is important for the party (in New York State at least) to garner votes under that party. It helps them maintain their position on the ballot in future elections. The Liberal Party in New York doesn’t elect too many candidates but it always has a prominent place on the ballot. Candidates for NYC mayor (Republican and Democrat) will actively seek the endorsement of the Liberal Party because they do have a block of voters that will vote under that party’s banner. When the minor party wants to run a candidate they are assured a place on the ballot.
That’s probably as clear as mud. The minor parties will often endorse a candidate from a major party hoping that enough people will vote for that candidate under their column on the ballot to maintain that party’s standing. If you like the Working Families Party you don’t have to waste your presidential vote on a nothing candidate and can still help your party.
The other key point is that the two “big” minor parties in New York, the Liberal and Conservative Parties, normally give their endorsements to the Democrats and Republicans respectively, but can withhold it – and, very rarely, endorse across the standard lines. The effect is to ensure that the Democratic candidates are acceptable liberals, and the Republican candidates are acceptable conservatives, for the most part. At least once each in the last 40 years, each of the minor parties has elected a (well-liked and already well known) candidate to public office against both Republican and Democratic opposition.
Several Republican candidatges in NYC have sought and gotten the Liberal endorsement --at least once, a conservative Democrat Congressional candidate from upstate sought and got the Conservative line on the ballot.
The Liberal Party lost its major party status in 2002 and no longer qualifies for automatic ballot access. It is largely defunct. The big minor parties in NY now are the Conservative Party, the WFP, and the obnoxiously named Independence Party.
Andrew Cuomo killed the Liberal Party in 2002 by remaining on the ballot, and then endorsing another candidate and dropping out.
And the minor parties don’t really have a different agenda than the Democrats and Republicans. WF is used by Democrats to get the votes of Republicans who don’t want to vote for a Democrat, and the Conservative Party is used by Republicans to get Democrats to vote for their candidate. There are some exceptions, but that’s the main reason the system is kept (in local elections, you see the same process in the setting up of purely local parties for the major party candidates to have a second or third line).
BTW, in Schenectady County, the Conservative Party has nothing to do with conservativism. It was taken over a couple of decades ago by the police and firemen’s unions and they use the endorsement to get favorable treatment. You could be a flaming pro-abortion anti-Bush Democrat, but if you promise to give the police and firemen’s unions a good contract or eliminate a clause they don’t like in the contract, you’ll get the Conservative endorsement.
In many other states, votes are counted by party, so having two lines on the ballot doesn’t help. Only New York and a couple of others total the votes for a candidate on multiple party lines.