How would you change election laws to promote third parties?

Great Debates
41

But people are willing to waste their vote. They do it all the time.

Here’s the election results for the 2006 NY gubernatorial election:

Eliot Spitzer (Democratic) 2,882,524
John Faso (Republican) 1,217,516
Malachy McCourt (Green) 40,729
John Clifton (Libertarian) 15,068
Jimmy McMillan (Independent) 13,743
Maura DeLuca (Socialist Workers) 7,128

First off, as I wrote above, despite efforts by the Big Two, as you can see the Greens, the Libertarians, the Socialist Workers, and an independant candidate were all on the ballot.

Second, everyone knew that Spitzer was going to win. Spitzer didn’t want to look arrogant by declaring himself the winner and Faso didn’t want to look hopeless by conceding defeat before Election Day but there was no real contest.

But despite the certain Democratic victory, over a million people still cast votes for the Republican candidate. 29% of the actual voters were willing to waste their vote on a candidate they knew was going to lose.

Compare this with the combined total of 76,668 actual votes that were cast for all of the other candidates. People who believe third parties represent some untapped will of the people need to explain why fifteen times as many people were willing to “waste” a vote for the Republican party than were willing to “waste” a vote for any other party. Everyone knew the Democrats were going to win. Anyone who didn’t want to vote for Spitzer knew their vote was meaningless and was free to vote for any party they chose. And 94% of those people chose to vote for the Republicans.

42

[QUOTE=Giles]
In the system used in the US, John Doe’s most rational vote would be for the Democrat candidate, even though the third party might be closer to his personal position. In the system used in Australia, John Doe’s most rational vote would be for the Social Democrat candidate, with a second preference going to the Democrat, because he’s more likely to get a candidate he wants elected that way.

So if you want to work out what would happen in a US House of Reps election with proportional representation, you shouldn’t just look at the voting figures in present elections, because some votes will change: some people will be voting Libertarian, or Green, or for independents, or for conservative Christian candidates, instead of Dems and Repubs, because they will no longer be “wasting their votes”.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, that was precisely the point I was making with my example. In a winner take all system there’s no real motivation to support a party that can only get around 10% of the votes.

Third parties aren’t impossible under FPTP. But there’s a very distinct difference between “multi-party” systems wherein more than two parties regularly have a hand in government and essentially two-party systems with “aberration” third parties that get a few seats in the legislature here and there but never really take a hand in governing.

The NDP for example, could definitely exist in the United States. In fact there’s been a few times we’ve come close to establishing a party like the NDP (not necessarily in politics, but rather a small, third party that has a consistent presence in the legislature but virtually never takes a hand in governing) the Progressive Party and in more recent years the Reform Parties came very close to becoming viable, small third parties. They both just collapsed due to internal incompetence more than anything else.

I guess the question is, what is your motivation. Do you want to foster the development of small, mostly irrelevant third parties like the NDP or the Lib Dems? There are ways to do that. In fact, there’s even ways for coalition governments to happen in the United States. Of course, coalition control of the House or Senate does not equate to control of the White House as the U.S. does not employ a Westminster political system. But if there was a Social Democratic party that won 25% of the seats in the House, the Democrats won 40% of the Seats, and the GOP won the remaining 35%, there’s nothing Constitutionally that would prevent the Social Dems and the Democrats from caucusing together to appoint a Speaker and et cetera.

Realistically two things have to happen if you want to see a party like the Lib Dems or the NDP survive in the United States, the first, and biggest one is, a party with coherent leadership and some appreciable degree of political appeal has to be established. The Progressive party and the Reform party (to a much lesser degree) were making inroads in that regard, but both mostly fell apart due to lack of coherent leadership, which is more or less their own fault and not the fault of the FPTP system.

But if you want a real multi-party system, and not a system like in Canada where you have the NDP which has never formed a government but can have some influence on legislation then you have get rid of FPTP voting, and go to proportional voting.

When I think of a country as being a “two-party” system, I take that to mean “two party rule” ie, one of two parties rule. In the UK, it’s always been the Tories or Labour (or its predecessors) forming governments. Coalition governments have been exceedingly rare, and throughout the country many seats are only really contested by candidates from two parties.

Canada is a “two-party” country with a strong regional party which distorts the picture somewhat. But essentially, Canadian history typically shows that either the Liberals or the Conservatives form a government. Even during the long, long period where the Conservatives fractured into multiple parties and the Liberals almost universally formed governments, Canada wasn’t really a one-party system, it was a “two-party” system in which one of the parties was fractured and in bad shape for a long time, not entirely unlike the condition of the Democratic party in the United States for many years following the American Civil War.

I don’t define “two-party” as meaning “exclusively” two parties, because even the United States has many “third parties” but rather a system in which one of two parties almost always runs government. And that’s pretty much the system the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. have. Because of the way parliamentary government differs from the American system, there’s some situations you would see in Canada and the U.K. that you wouldn’t see in the U.S. But since neither of the three countries employs proportional representation, neither of them are true multi-party systems.

43

[QUOTE=Shodan]
No offense, but the question remains - why should we take steps to push third parties?

A slanted way of phrasing the question of the title is, how can we jigger the system to frustrate the will of the electorate?

Maybe parties other than the Republicans and Democrats can come up with candidates and positions that will make people want to vote for them. If they can’t (or won’t), why should the election system be changed to accomodate this?

I don’t mean to shit on your thread, but …

Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]

Yes, I should mention I’m not in favor of reforms geared around making the United States a multi-party system. I don’t really oppose making it a bit easier for a minor, third party to grab some House seats or the occasional Senate seat, but I don’t view that as a major political issue.

The big-tent parties that come about in two-party systems, are indeed “ill-defined” compared to the very specialized, very well-defined parties in multi-party systems. However, I feel that because of the necessity in maintaining a governing coalition in multi-party systems, multi-party systems create far more “party loyalty.” In many multi-party systems you pretty much vote how your party votes, and that’s it.

In the United States candidates are bigger than party, and regional differences between candidates of the same party result in a fairly realistic degree of legislative independence. Hillary Clinton can vote pretty much however she thinks her constituents want her to vote, she does not have to toe the party line. A problem I’ve seen with multi-party political systems is the parties seem to have a much greater degree of control over their members, and if a member votes independently they will lose support of the party and become unelectable.

In the U.S. it’s just the opposite because of State run primaries. The national party officers pretty much have to accept independent minded legislators who have won nominations because they lack any power to eject these persons from the party, and they can’t really withhold funding from them because a popular candidate in State A could easily win election even without funding from the main party (some candidates receive little to no money from their respective party and easily raise their own.)

44

[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig]
Even countries with first-past-the-post systems (UK, Canada, Australia) support more than two viable parties when the parties control their own nominations.
[/QUOTE]
As **Giles ** has noted, elections in Australia are by preferential voting, not first past the post.

45

[QUOTE=zamboniracer]
SaintCad, could you elaborate about this point please? I don’t follow what you mean.
[/QUOTE]

This was a snarky comment that if state election laws that make it impossible for a third party to succeed - then throw out elections. Take for example in my Congressional district - out Rep died and so the Governor ordered a special election. Long story short, a potential candidate had about 2 weeks to do one of two things:
a) Gather enough signatures (easy enough for a large party with mailing lists, resources, a recognizable name, an established base)
b) Pay $18,000 in filing fees

Would this really change if the XVIIth Amendment were appealed? I think so where a party strong at the state level may have enough political pull to get a senatorship out of the deal.
But I was just thinking about primaries today (reading an old US NEWS) and how the Dems are changing the dates around. Huh? Isn’t the state suppose to determine the election dates and not the parties (subtle difference I know)? Here’s my solution - make every primary on the same day OR each state says “Have your candidate registered by October 1.” then leave it to the party to run (and pay for) the election or caucus.

46

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
But as a practical matter, they’re ineffective. While they are wrongful obstacles, they are ones that most third parites have learned to surmount. So while they should be abolished as a matter of principle, their existence doesn’t explain why third parties don’t get votes.
[/QUOTE]
As several people have explained, one reason third parties don’t get votes because of tactical voting, where someone votes for a candidate that is not their favorite because their favorite candidate is unlikely to win, and their least favorite more likely to. It’s hard to say exactly how many votes for the major parties are based on this reasoning. It’s unlikely (but possible) that a majority of voters in a first past the post system actually would prefer to vote for other candidates, but doing so is not a good choice from a game-theory standpoint. A properly designed voting system, such as instant runoff, or preferential voting, can reduce or eliminate this problem.

47

I reject the contention that the two-party systems of Canada, in which 224 of 308 seats in the House of Commons are held by two parties, or the UK, in which 554 of 645 seats are held by two parties, are in any way comparable to that of the United States, in which two parties hold 535 of 535 seats in Congress.

At a regional level, the disparities are even greater. The SNP holds a plurality in the Scottish Parliament, and in Canada, the NDP and the PQ (obviously) are much more heavily represented in some provincial assemblies. In the United States, the Libertarians and Greens consider it a milestone any time they hold a single seat in one house of the legislature of one of the 50 states.

Furthermore, the United States has had the same two parties since 1854, which is true of no other democracy.

Political competition in the United States is limited to two parties to a vastly greater extent than in any other large democracy, and the reason is the state-run primary election.

48

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
So we have a system today where any aspiring politician chooses the major party that provides the best fit for them, and would never consider joining a third party. Third parties are for cranks, anyone with any talent that actually wants to govern rather than complain and bloviate joins one of the parties that actually has a chance. It’s a self-perpetuating system in that way.

But is this such a bad thing? The two parties are not static entities, they are the sum total of their members. Today’s conservative southern religious Republican party bears no ideological relation to Lincoln’s northern progressive anti-slavery party. Today’s Democratic party bears little ideological relation to FDR’s Democratic party, and that party was in no way similar to the Democratic party of the 1800s. Under our system the parties serve the candidates, rather than the candidates serving the party.
[/QUOTE]
I think it IS a bad thing. For instance, the left netroots have a clear POV on a lot of issues where the Democratic Party is muddled. A party representing that POV that was allied with the Dems on most issues, but unequivocally for universal, single-payer health care, for full withdrawal from Iraq over the next year, for net neutrality and against near-monopolistic control of the means of communication, etc., would clarify the national debate on existing issues in some ways, and bring into the debate a number of issues that neither party wanted to raise. And on the other side, if those now in the GOP split up into a number of allied groups (e.g. one party for the religious wingnuts, another for the more libertarian conservatives, another for the handful of ‘moderate’ Republicans, etc.), it would limit the extent to which the wingnuts could make the entire GOP fight for its agenda.

Multiple parties would also move power back to wherever the center of the political spectrum was at any given time, since even a small party in the center could determine which side to ally with to form a governing coalition. For instance, in 2003-04, when the GOP had a small Senate majority, a moderate Republican party composed of Snowe, Collins, Chafee, and Specter in the Senate, and a similar group in the House, could have set policy for the country, instead of being a powerless minority derided as ‘RINOs.’

49

[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig]
Furthermore, the United States has had the same two parties since 1854, which is true of no other democracy.
[/QUOTE]

That’s not quite true – the Republican Party only became one of 2 main parties in 1864, with the second election of Abraham Lincoln. In the election of 1860 there were 4 major political parties, and in 1856 the Whigs were still a major party. But 143 years is still long enough!

50

[hijack]

If we had a system open to third parties, what parties would most likely emerge as major players? Would the Dem and Pub parties break up into several smaller ones?

[/hijack]

51

[QUOTE=Giles]
That’s not quite true – the Republican Party only became one of 2 main parties in 1864, with the second election of Abraham Lincoln. In the election of 1860 there were 4 major political parties, and in 1856 the Whigs were still a major party. But 143 years is still long enough!
[/QUOTE]
But the R’s and D’s have been the two largest parties–measured either by seats in Congress or electoral votes–since the Republicans first contested the House election of 1854, with the single and partial exception of 1912, when Progressive Theodore Roosevelt placed second, although Republicans held more seats than Progressives in Congress.

That’s not to say that the R’s and D’s were the only two parties during that time. Indeed, the situation before World War I might more aptly be compared with Canada or the UK today, with two parties dominant but not to the exclusion of all others. At various times the Know-Nothings, Constitutional Unionists, Greenbackers, Populists, Progressives, and Socialists held significant numbers of seats in Congress and legislatures. Since WWI, and especially since WWII, there has been much less such activity, primarily because of . . . well, I don’t want to beat it to death.

52

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
[hijack]

If we had a system open to third parties, what parties would most likely emerge as major players? Would the Dem and Pub parties break up into several smaller ones?

[/hijack]
[/QUOTE]

First off - a return of the Bull Moose Progressive Party for those of us Republicans that are tired of the hijacking of the party by the religious right. Anyone interested in starting this in California? Only 88,990 more people to register to be a party in California.

Possibly a party made up of theocrats that think the separation of church and state should only apply to non-Fundamentalist Protestant religions.

I’ll leave it to a Dem to come up with the splinter parties on their side of the aisle.

53

One simple (if constitutionally challenged) electoral change I’d wholeheartedly support would involve elections for the House of Representatives. Let me describe by way of example:

Illinois has 19 members in the US House. In the next congressional election, all Congressional candidates running in the state would be placed on a statewide ballot, each voter could select one from the list, and the top 19 vote-getters would become the state’s Congresspersons.

This not only would prove a boon for potential third-party candidates–winning 5% of the vote would almost guarantee a spot in Congress–but it would give voters a chance to cast votes based on the nuances of particular candidates within a party (e.g. statewide Republican voters could directly choose between the religious wing vs. the fiscal wing of their party). Plus, it would completely eliminate federal gerrymandering.

To those who think such a system would end up electing only Chicagoans from Illinois–not fairly representing the local interests of the downstate area–my response is that shrewd candidates would learn they have more to gain by campaigning in underserved areas, and that if voters truly believe a “local boy/girl” should be their representative, that can be reflected in their vote (the ballot after all is likely to have ~50 candidates).

On checking links, this sounds a lot like “proportional representation”, but I think its a little different in that voters will be electing individuals, rather than parties with lists of candidates.

54

Read what I wrote in post #41. I pointed out a real example in which there was no possibility of “tactical” voting and people were free to vote their conscience without concern for the outcome. And the overwhelming majority chose to vote for Democrats or Republicans.

To me, third party supporters seem like Chicago Cubs fans who argue that there must be something wrong with the way baseball is being played because their team never wins the championship.

55

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Read what I wrote in post #41. I pointed out a real example in which there was no possibility of “tactical” voting and people were free to vote their conscience without concern for the outcome. And the overwhelming majority chose to vote for Democrats or Republicans.

To me, third party supporters seem like Chicago Cubs fans who argue that there must be something wrong with the way baseball is being played because their team never wins the championship.
[/QUOTE]
It helps if there’s a minor-party candidate actually worth voting for.

Plenty of third-party Presidential candidates over the years - Nader in 2000, Perot in 1992, Anderson in 1980 - have been considerably hampered by the reality that a vote for them was, in effect, a wasted vote in a competitive election.

But in 1984, 1972, or 1964, a third-party candidate wasn’t going to get many votes despite the lopsidedness of the election because there wasn’t a third-party candidate worth a damn to vote for.

56

If I wanted to promote third parties…

First off, I’m a firm believer in voting for the candidate, not the party. That takes proportional voting off the table, at least as it’s normally practiced with the party picking which of their candidates fills their quota.

This also destroys fusion, at least as described here where you can vote for John Doe as a Know-Nothing or John Doe as a Whig. I’ve no problem with a candidate being endorsed on the ballot by more than one party, but you’d be voting for John Doe of the Know-Nothings and the Whigs.

In a single-seat election I’d move to a Condorcet voting method, preferably the Schulze method. Why? The point of any Condorcet method is that it is impossible to aid a candidate you prefer by strategically voting against your actual preferences. For example, voting for Nader as your first choice has no effect on the contest of Gore v. Bush.

Next problem: gerrymandering. Two possible solutions. The simplest is an at-large election. The top X vote-getters get a seat. Good luck differentiating yourself enough to beat out the 3rd party candidates and stay a member of the party.

Alternately, we create the districts by selecting the districting plan with the smallest possible perimeters while keeping an equal number of citizens, and then we’re back to a Condorcet method for picking the winners. Actually, that’s worthwhile whether or not you’re interested in third parties. The party in power at the decade’s start really oughtn’t get to pick the party mix for most of the next decade.

I emphatically would not support public campaign funding. The government hasn’t any business picking political parties to fund. More to the point, whatever method for distributing funds is adopted is going to be manipulated to the advantage of whoever’s currently in power in an attempt to limit access to funds.

Of course, before you do any of this you have to decide if it’s actually worthwhile. The two-party system in the US consists of two opposing coalitions, but they are forced to work together which tends to moderate both parties. For example, there’s no obvious reason why support for affirmative action and support for school vouchers are in opposite parties… it’s just that the Democrats ended up with both the teacher’s union and the NAACP as portions of their coalition.

Most single-issue third parties tend to get their platform yanked out from under them as soon as they start getting any real support by one or both of the big boys. The ones that are left are the crackpots who either value ideological purity over results or are pushing agendas the electorate doesn’t support.

Substantive minor parties tend to have disproportionate effect on a coalition of parties, since you often end up with two major (centrist) parties having to pander to one or two minor (extreme) parties to create a majority caucus.

57

The major factor producing a two-party system is a structural one: the fact that we elect the Executive branch in a separate election from the Legislative branch. Thus we have a President elected separately (even for a different term of office) than other countries, where they have a Prime Minister chosen from the winning party (or coalition of parties) in the Legislative branch.

This means that there is no structural force supporting third parties; indeed, this government structure works to make them irrelevant. So any third parties that arise either die off eventually, or they replace the weaker one of the existing 2 parties (like the Republicans replacing the Whigs).

All the countries that have third (and more) parties have a Prime Minister form of Executive. (They might have an office titled President, but it is basically a figurehead.)

All these changes in election laws (Instant Runoff Elections, At-Large positions, Fusion ballots, proportional electoral college votes, etc.) will not make any significant difference as long as the basic structure stays as it is.

58

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
To me, third party supporters seem like Chicago Cubs fans who argue that there must be something wrong with the way baseball is being played because their team never wins the championship.
[/QUOTE]

Nicely put.

Perhaps Ross Perot and the history of the Independence party has some lessons for third parties. Perot got (IIRC) 19% of the vote nationally, and Jesse Ventura won the governorship of Minnesota. Since then, nada, at least nationally. They seemed to be headed towards relevance, at least for a while, and then fell apart - not because the system was rigged against them, but because they couldn’t come up with issues and/or candidates that impressed voters as worth the effort of supporting them.

Regards,
Shodan

59

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Perhaps Ross Perot and the history of the Independence party has some lessons for third parties…They seemed to be headed towards relevance, at least for a while, and then fell apart - not because the system was rigged against them, but because they couldn’t come up with issues and/or candidates that impressed voters as worth the effort of supporting them.
[/QUOTE]
No, what happened to the Perotist movement was that the newly activist citizens who worked hard to collect petition signatures and get Perot on the ballot, felt what one might call a degree of ownership of the movement they’d helped get underway.

When Perot decided to treat the Independence Party as his personal plaything, rather than give the activists who’d gotten him on the ballot any voice in the running of the party, the movement quickly dissipated.

60

[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net]
The major factor producing a two-party system is a structural one: the fact that we elect the Executive branch in a separate election from the Legislative branch.
[/QUOTE]
Mexico elects its President in a separte election and has three strong, vibrant national parties. France elects its President in a separate election and has 11 parties represented in its national legislature. South Korea elects its President in a separate election and has 5 parties represented in its legislature. And so on . . .