I wont bore you with the details but thats essentially how voting in a “preferential” system works. Many democracies, Australia being one, have such a system and they work well. Your system seems kind of crude and archaic in comparison. Is there any push for preferential voting in the states? Such a system would eliminate the angst people are feeling over a third party candidate as people could still vote their opinion without a Perot or a Nader stealing away votes from the “real” candidate. You would get rid of the spoiler aspect.
I’m a day late and a dollar short here, but I would like to add to Dr. J’s post this scintillating comment:
Me too.
I’d prefer Edwards. I would have preferred Dean. I’ll vote for Kerry. As I said in the Pit, if the Democrats nominate a ham sandwich, I’ll vote for it. And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Nader the Green Party candidate in '96? A strong Democratic candidate doesn’t need to worry about him.
I’m going to start a fund to buy Ralph a campaign car. A Corvair, I’m thinking, or maybe a Pinto. Who’s in?
Not only our voting system, but our entire structure of government is set up to reward the winners of a two party system. It may not have been intended that way, but that’s how it works.
There is nothing at all stopping a third party from rising. Actually, if Ross Perot had been serious about starting his movement as a third party instead of as a vehicle for self-aggrandization (as he proved in '96), I believe we would even now be in the midst of a major realignment and reconsolidation of political parties in this country.
And y’know what? At the end, we would be back down to two parties. It’s what our system rewards. It would take a lot of convincing for me to believe that’s a bad thing. Look at the legislative and administrative gridlock that occurs in countries with many parties represented. Even parlimentary democracies function best when there are only a few main parties. Canada has briefly been up to four, even five, but the PC’s are merging with the Alliance and the PQ voters are wandering back to the Liberals.
Politics works best when a party can embrace as many people as possible without betraying their core principles. It does not work when a party has a small number of fervent believers in a larger amount of core principles. Where then is the room for compromise, where is the ability to progress, where is the ability to make the changes that your party believes is right?
Did any of this make sense? I hope so.
In pure PR (proportional representation) any party getting over a certian threshold (say 5% of the overall vote) is given seats equal to the % of votes they got.
So in the republic of simple math:
(100 seat legislature, 1% threshold)
1% of the overall vote gets you one seat in the legislature.
PROS: lots of opinions represented, people vote for positives more than negatives. (a green, a fiscal conservative, a free trader, etc.)
CONS:
10% Union/Protectionist, 10% Democrat, 7% Civil Rights, 6% Immigrant Rights, 7% More money for Schools, 1% English only Language, 10% Tax Cuts, 10% Republican, 7% Green, 10% FreeTrade, 7% Libertarian, 1% Flat Tax, 1% Gay Marriage, 2% Michael Jackson, 5% Prayer in School amendment, 3% No prayer in school amendment, 3% Independants.
now, pass a yearly budget.
Some systems (notably Germany) use this system for one house, and then a geographic system (usually First past the post) for the other. Not surprisingly, the lower house is more fragmented, and the upper has a higher concentration of the major parties.
Regarding the Greens, et al.
No one has the monopoly on truth and passion, I’ve seen the system desparaged and defended with equal power and pursuasion. Keep in mind though the reason that parties hold things like primaries: to show the candidates and the country where the mass of opinion is on important issues. Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I think that party policy can be altered from the inside. What would happen if the local greens, en masse joined the Democratic (or hell, the Republican) party, and started showing up for nominating meetings, and were delegates? Wouldn’t the attitude of the party be forced to swing towards their viewpoints? I think so.
Of course, in the situation I’ve outlined, you have to compromise. I know, they’re not views, they’re principles. They must never be compromised, yada yada yada. To hold a view so tightly that you can not deviate from it in the short term in an effort to implement it over time is fanaticism, not politics.
The Greens really want to get peoples attention? Nominate Kerry (or Edwards.) Watch how fast the Green Party is tossed onto state ballots. (not sure that this would work in every state.) And if a sizeable % of the Presidents votes come from the GP, what do you think this would do to his policies?
RE:nader
Quote the Simpsons:
BURNS: “what act of unmitigated evil shall the republican party do today?”
OFF CAMERA: “Ohh! Oooh!”
BURNS: “No Nader, you’ve already done enough.”
Nevermore.
- C
As the year 2000 began, I was fully prepared to cast a vote for Gore. I wasn’t particularly happy about it, but that’s what I had planned to do.
Then, as 2000 progressed, Gore gave me more and more reasons not to vote for him. When, in debates, Bush presented his soft underbelly for a solid strike, did Gore take advantage of it? No… he sighed and shook his head and wasted his chance – not once, but many times – to truly let voters like me know that he was the better candidate. When asked clear questions about his positions, Gore waffled and hemmed and hawed and talked his way around them.
To put it simply, Gore didn’t just fail to earn my vote in 2000. By his inaction and lack of – well, anything – Gore actually lost my vote. This was the same for many of the Nader voters I knew. We were ready to vote for Gore, but Gore convinced us not to. He worked pretty hard at it, too, from what I can tell.
Even more simply… Nader didn’t lose the election for Gore. Gore lost it for himself.
All of that said, I share DoctorJ’s feelings about it now. Despite Gore’s poor performance in the 2000 campaign, I made a mistake. Most of those who voted for Nader did.
Even though, in my particular state, voting Nader didn’t make an actual difference (Washington went to Gore anyway), I won’t be doing it again. The reaction of most of the people I know who voted for Nader is the same: to quote The Who (and, in an odd turn, Bush himself), “We won’t be fooled again.”
Most democracies practice variants of Proportional Representation.
For example, a party will have to win a minimum share of votes -5% in Germany IIRC - to obtain any seats in Parliament. This encourages parties to craft a broad platform, rather than special-interest ones.
(Israel and IIRC Italy do not have this rule, at least in any strong way, and suffer from many small parties. A poor implementation, IMHO).
Also, many countries have “Super-proportional Representation”, whereby a party with 30% of the vote will win more than 30% of the seats and a party with 10% of the vote will win less than 10% of the seats. Another good idea.
I recall reading an article where the authors had data from a union election in the UK, where the members somehow had their preferences surveyed comprehensively. With that dataset, various voting systems could be applied to it.
The results divided into 2 groupings. One grouping included “Winner Take All”. The other grouping had… every other system.
The authors were cheered by their results. Their interpretation was that countries didn’t have to worry about what voting system they adopted, as long as it wasn’t Winner Take All.
You’re a dreamer. The Democratic Party in 2000 did not represent many Green interests: ecological concerns, disarmament, decentralization of wealth and power, full gay rights, living wages, etc. It still doesn’t, though it is better than the Republicans. (But still, how many Dems in Congress voted for the war in Iraq?) The Dems know this; they know that the Republicans do nothing for me, so they assume that they own my vote, that I HAVE to vote for them as the lesser of the two evils, and thus can abuse or neglect my issues. I am sick of it and insulted by it. I changed my voter registration from Democrat to Green during the Clinton administration and I have no regrets.
Just like your fanaticism tfor a two-party system and the idea that I must vote for your candidate because I don’t like Bush? What if I don’t like your candidate either? What if I want to use my vote for the person I think is best for the job? This is not to say that I won’t vote for a Democrat in the 2004 election, if I think he’s the best candidate. In 2000, I could not say that about Gore. I don’t owe the Democrats jack.
Do you realize that the Green Party actually has a platform that is not “We are trying to get the Republican candidate elected by attrition”? Wanna read it?
http://www.gp.org/platform/2000/gpp2000.txt
Kerry or Edwards would have to have a platform that is aligned with the Green Party’s platform. Are you laughing? Me too, because that’s not going to happen. The Green Party is not the leftmost arm of the Democratic Party. People who are Green hold diverging views from most Democrats, which is why they have their own party. This seems elementary to me, but apparently it bears repetition.
Here’s what most people who harangue Greens about 2000 don’t seem to understand: I wouldn’t have voted for Gore even if Nader wasn’t running. I simply did not feel he would make a good president. I am not a Democrat and I don’t feel the Democratic Party gives much of a damn about the issues I care about most. If the Dems are so worried about Nader as a threat, then why not woo his supporters by showing concern for their issues? By making an effort to distinguish themselves in a meaningful way from the Republicans? Instead of insulting, scolding, and threatening them?
George Washingtom himself warned against the evils of a two-party system. It hasn’t been working for me most of my voting life. Why does the lesson of the 2000 election have to be that all Nader voters are selfish weirdos who lost the election for Gore? Why can’t it be that the Democrats can’t take the liberal vote for granted anymore?
Of course those are rhetorical questions. The middle of the road undecided voter is still the most desired block, and they are the ones who will be wooed by the Dems. People like me will still be left out in the cold by the Dems, so I will decide about voting for them on a case-by-case basis. In a way, that does make me an undecided voter, but since I’m not wavering between Bush and Democrat TBA, no one will be making campaign promises to sway me. The Dems will still act like I owe them my vote by virtue of their not being Republicans, but I’m sorry, that’s just not enough for me.
Did you miss the smiley? I was actually mocking the people who insist on blaming Nader or Buchanan or whomever.
I’m looking forward to watching Ralphie on MTP in a few minutes.
I feel your pain, Ruby. If I had my political druthers, the conservative wing of the body politic would be represented by the Democrats, with loyal opposition from the Trotskyist/Green Alliance. I vote for the Dem because its the closest I’m going to get. I choose because it is my duty to choose, I am obliged by my citizenship to make a choice, however distasteful. That obligation does not dissolve simply because no candidate from the conservative wing of the extreme left is available, or viable.
I may admire Don Quixote, but my vote, small as it is, is too precious to squander. Too many good people have made sacrifice so that I may have it.
Nader has shopped himself out. He’s become the Harold Stassen of the Greens, the Pat Paulsen perennial joke. The smartest thing Al Gore has done in his political life is to avoid this election completely and avoid becoming a political punchline. It’s too late for Ralph.
Nader will fail miserably (again), but the humiliation this time will probably cause him to drop out for good. He no longer has the image of David taking on Goliath, just that of a pathetic also-ran, consumed with political ambition. The Greens need to find someone with passion, fire, and a legitimate platform.
I’ve always wondered if Nero was able to enjoy his own artistry. Rubystreak, commitment to an ideology is all well and good, but isn’t that cold comfort if the end result is the present EPA, Justice Department, faith-based initiatives, and push for war? You seem so mad about the Democrats that you are happy to see their comeuppance to spite your face. Are you really content with what we have at present? I’ll be happy to send you one of those “Don’t blame me” stickers. In fact, I just had another million dollar idea:
“Don’t blame me, I remained unswervingly married to my own particular ideology.”
You also reminded me of this Emo Phillips joke:
While I agree with you that Nader is looking pretty shopworn, I think you are giving Gore too much credit. His Dean endoresment has pushed him well into the political sidelines. True he didn’t run this time, but Americans don’t like a loser, so I don’t think anyone really expected him to.
Here’s where Nader really screws up Kerry:
Without a 3rd party challenger on the left, Kerry would have been free to ignore his ‘base’ after he locks up the nomination and veer back to the center to attract Republicans and independents. That’s what usually happens after the primaries are over. You can become a centrist again, because after all, where is the radical wing of your party going to go? They’ll never vote for Bush, so you’re safe.
But with Nader lurking in the wings, Kerry has to walk a fine line. If he moves to far to the right, he loses votes to Nader. Move too far to the left to placate Nader voters, and he loses independents and moderate Republicans. Nader being in the race just makes his positioning and triangulation that much more difficult.
I don’t know, Sam. I tend to agree with 'Lcui (and his ilk :)) on this one. The support for a Nader-type candidate this time around will be greatly squashed by the antipathy that so many folks on the left feel for Bush.
Zogby has some interesting poll results (look down towards the bottom of the page), but I don’t think polls mean too much at this point; especially regarding 3rd party candidates.
I make of it a good argument for instant runoff voting (IRV), also known as approval voting, which is the system you describe in the third paragraph. Under an IRV system, we could not have to choose between using our vote to express our own real political opinions and using them as a tool to align political powers; we could do both with the same vote. See the website of the Center for Voting and Democracy, www.fairvote.com.
Of course, that isn’t the system we have now, so I was really hoping Nader would stay out of it this year. But maybe his presence in the race will at least give him a chance to call attention to far-out ideas like IRV, which I hope he would.
Sorry, the CV&D is at www.fairvote.org, not .com.
I don’t think he understands voting systems, BrainGlutton, else he’d realize the damage his run did last time. Yes, single transferable runoff voting would be sweet, and (I’ve read that) it has been suggested some times in the past. I’d still prefer approval voting for single-seat elections. In fact, I’d pretty much prefer almost anything to what we have now.
I have the same trouble with the Greens that I have with my brethren in the Libertarian Party (and I actually vote Lib most times).
To wit: The wish to be pure more than they wish to win.
And politics is all about the winning.
Maybe I spent too much time down on the hill but I don’t see a minority party cutting a deal to get 5% of the loaf as such a bad thing. Especially when the alternative is getting -50% of the loaf.
I want to comment on what Ruby said up there:
Most people I know who tell me this don’t seem to realize what this implies: that you give the candidate in question no incentive whatsoever to even take your views into account.
It’s sort of like Clinton and the NRA in his first term…
NRA: Don’t cross us or we’ll organize our base against you.
Clinton: Fuck off, your base wouldn’t vote for me if Satan was on the other side. Get the hell out of my office.
NRA: D’oh!
In short, if you offer the politician no room for compromise where you BOTH can have a meeting of the minds then they have every incentive to ignore you. And that’s what happened.
All that said I think the smart money is on Nader polling FAR below where he was last time and being ignored by both sides. Though if Nader gets support from the right it’ll become a real campaign issue.
I do think that if a significant Green base crossed the line to attend Democratic Party events and caucuses and such they’d begin to have their views at least given lip service.
Hell, look at the the influence some fringe groups that DO play within the system have. You think the Neo-Cons have a majority of the people in their back pocket? No, but they worked the system and got what they wanted.
I would agree that Nader won’t get as much support as he got last time. I’ll bet he doesn’t get 1/3 of the votes he got last time.
But what his existence does is give Kerry’s ‘base’ a lever to use on him. If he moves too far to the right, you’ll hear a lot of squawking from the far left. Nader’s poll numbers will begin to move. Then Kerry will have to make tough choices.
Now, how much of a factor this will be remains to be seen. If Nader’s support never rises above 1-2%, perhaps Kerry can just ignore him. But if he starts pulling 3-4% or more, then Kerry has to start placating the base, and that will cost him with independents.