Voting for third parties or choosing the lesser of evils in US voting

In discussing tactics for voting in presidential elections often votes cast for third party candidates are described as wasted ballots or alternatively as possibly helping to elect the greater of two evil candidates.

This article is designed to show that both criticisms are based upon misunderstanding the purpose of voting from the standpoint of the individual voter. Some discussions appear to assume that voting is something like betting. From this point of view voting for a third party candidate is irrational a wasted or losing bet. The statistics are clear: " Since 1988, third party candidates have averaged less than one tenth of a percent of the popular vote. With that in mind, it is fair to say this year’s leading third-party candidates are polling much better than average." Yet recent polling give Green Party candidate Jill Stein an average of just 3.1 per cent nationally, while Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has an average of 8.6 percent. If voting were like betting one would demand huge odds before you would place your bet on a third party.

But voting is not like betting. Even if there are only two candidates running you do not vote for a candidate because they are more likely to win, but usually for the candidate you want to win. You hope that voting will itself help the candidate you vote for to win. You are at one and the same time expressing a preference and hoping that your vote along with others will result in your preferred candidate winning. Yet, your one vote is quite unlikely to determine the outcome. In almost all cases it will make no decisive difference but when a contest is likely to be close it makes sense to vote as a factor in determining the outcome. Even though you know your candidate will not win it still makes sense to express you preference and support. Even within a two party system it makes no sense not to vote for someone because they are quite likely to lose. As this article notes: In cases like California and Texas, where the results are often lopsided, the wasted vote logic could be applied to major party candidates. Should Californians planning to vote Republican or Texans planning to vote Democratic skip the election or vote differently simply because their vote “won’t count”? If a vote for a major party candidate destined to lose isn’t “wasted,” the same must be true of a vote for a minor party candidate also destined to lose.

If the wasted vote argument made any sense, all those votes for the losing candidates in states where one candidate is shown by polls to be almost certainly the winner are wasted. Yet no Democratic or Republican strategist ever suggests that voting for them in a situation where one or the other appears bound to lose is a wasted ballot. The argument that voting for a third party is a wasted ballot is not an argument at all. It is a myth widely accepted that is used by the two main parties to convince voters not to vote for third parties. A wasted ballot is more likely to occur when you vote for a person even though you do not prefer them. This brings us to another myth.

Often people vote for one of the candidates of the main parties even though they do not prefer either of them to a third party candidate or even disapprove of both of them. In this election, both Republican, Donald Trump, and Democrat, Hillary Clinton, have high disapproval ratings. Democrats are urged to vote for Clinton to stop Donald Trump and those who disapprove of Clinton are urged to vote for her as the lesser of evils. The result is that many will vote in a manner that does not express their preferences in terms of all the candidates but only in terms of those of the main parties. This is a device that functions as a means of bonding the voter to the two party system even though the candidates do not represent what voters prefer. It has little to do with any practical reality except for a few special situations. An extended critique of the lesser evil tactic can be found here.

Voting not only is an expression of support for a candidate but of the policies and platform of the party that the candidate represents. Voting for Clinton helps strengthen support for many policies that leftists disapprove. Electing her strengthens the power of an establishment that Clinton supports and to which she is beholden. The lesser evil doctrine is intended to do this, as was the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, and progressive chatter of Elizabeth Warren. It is all part of ensuring that the left stays within the Democratic party fold. If the aim were to just avoid the election of Trump, then the following policy makes more sense:To those left leaders who say they agree that the Democratic Party is hopelessly corrupted by corporate cash, but propose a “strategic” vote for Clinton “just this year,” we should ask: Why not at least urge a vote for Jill Stein in the majority of the country that are considered “safe states” like New York, where Clinton is up by 18%? Given the Electoral College system, the election will really be decided in a small number of swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

Voting for a third party will not prevent Trump or Clinton from winning. The US electorate is too habituated or indoctrinated into accepting the two-party system for that result to happen, but a vote for a third party candidate can have some effects:Strong showings by the Libertarians, Greens or other third parties in the 2016 election are very unlikely to prevent a Trump or Clinton presidency. But they could affect the positions presidential candidates take in 2020 and beyond.

If the showings are strong enough this could also encourage the growth of third parties and mount a challenge to the existing system. Third parties also give voters the opportunity to vote for candidates that represent policies closer to those that they prefer than do candidates of the two major parties.

Unlilely any third-party candidate will make it into US presidential debates

The threshold of support for being included in national presidential debates has been set by the Commission on Presidential Debates at 15 percent.

	1 of 2
Beyond the two major U.S. parties, the contenders for president are Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party. Stein is far below the threshold level and appears to have almost no chance of joining the debates. The highest Stein has polled so far is seven percent in a June 2016 poll. A CNN poll on August 1st showed that 13 percent of Bernie Sanders' supporters would vote for Stein, but 10 percent would vote for Gary Johnson the Libertarian candidate. Bernie Sanders has thrown his support behind Hillary Clinton the Democratic candidate for president. Between the periods of June and August of 2016, in a four way race between Trump, Clinton, Johnson and Stein, Stein's support has ranged from just 2.5 percent to 4.8 percent. As an election draws closer support for third party candidates tends to decline.

Gary Johnson is better known than Stein in that he served as Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 as a Republican. After withdrawing as candidate for the Republican Party nomination for president in 2012, he ran for the Libertarian party. Johnson concedes that extraordinary things need to happen for him to win a debate slot but his strategists also point out that a large number of Americans are unhappy with both Clinton and Trump as candidates. To win a slot would be a historic event as no third party candidate has managed to reach the 15 percent threshold since the Commission set the bar in the 2000 campaign. The Commission is a private group not accountable to the public in any way. While third parties oppose the bar as being much too high, supporters argue that a candidate should be able to prove that he or she represents a significant percentage of voters in order to qualify for such advantageous free air time that may be crucial in the race for the presidency. However, the high bar is just one more hurdle in a political system that is designed to work against third parties. Not only is campaigning very expensive, third parties only rarely receive coverage and discussion of issues is framed as if it is only the Republicans and Democrats count.

In the past, third parties often complained that many polls only cover the two main parties. However this time a number of significant polls include both Stein and Johnson. It is difficult to get 15 percent support unless there are polls measuring your support. Three pollsters including CNN are doing trial polls with the four main contenders. CBS/ New York Times and Fox News are doing three-way polls leaving out Stein. However, Fox News has announced it will include Stein in future polls. This will mean that four pollsters will be covering support for both Stein and Johnson as well as Trump and Clinton.

The presence of Stein in the polls may hurt Johnson's chances of reaching 15 percent support. When Stein is left out of the polls Johnson hit 12 percent in the latest Fox News and CBS/New York Times polls. However in the three recent polls in which Stein is included, Johnson comes in at just eight, nine and 10 while Stein averages five. Stein receives enough support to spoil any chance that Johnson has of joining the debates. While both Stein and Johnson rail against Trump and Clinton in the search for support, it would seem that Johnson also is being hurt by Stein.

Both Johnson and Stein are after the anti-establishment vote. Both draw from independents with a recent CNN poll showing Johnson winning 16 percent of their vote and Stein 8 percent. Johnson receives seven percent of the vote of disaffected Republicans while Stein gets three percent. Even with disaffected Democrats Johnson gets 3 percent with only two percent going to Stein. Johnson has only about a month to reach the threshold.

A Politico article points out that Johnson faces a dilemma as he needs to gain more of the left-wing anti-Hillary vote and those who want libertarian, free-market, anti-Trump policies. At present his message seems to be not at all ideological but just to "throw the bums out". In a recent statement he says: “We may never agree on all the small things, but let’s agree on the big thing: both parties have blown it … Working together we’ll find fair sensible and honest solutions….” The article suggests he could aim directly at Stein's support by pointing out that Stein will not get into the debates whereas he could with help. However, it is unlikely that there will be much support for helping Johnson get in the debates from the Greens even though he can make reference to common ground such as opposition to drone strikes and the drug war. Johnson could use a similar tactic to appeal to the right saying:“The truth is Trump is not a conservative, and he’s not going to win. He opposes free trade, rejects entitlement reform and supports budget-busting stimulus. Give me a shot to beat her. If you stand with me, I will be the only one on the main stage defending the Trans-Pacific Partnership, making the case for raising the retirement age and pledging to balance the budget, without tax increases.”While these appear sensible strategies, they will probably not be enough to swing significant support to Johnson so that he will be able to enter the debates. Johnson has campaigned as if he were the only third party candidate. With Stein now appearing in the polls, and a factor in keeping him from the 15 percent bar, he may be forced to deal with her as an opponent at least tactically.

How presidential debates are rigged to exclude third party candidates

There are two other candidates running for president who run in enough states that they could theoretically be elected president. Neither of these two candidates can take part in the presidential debates. Why?

Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, the presidential nominee of the Libertarian party is on the ballot in a total of 48 states. Dr Jill Stein, the nominee of the Green party, is running in 39 states. Since both could win one would think that they should be able to debate the issues with Romney and Obama.

But these debates are not run according to rules set out by the government. The rules are set by a non-profit organization called the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). This group was created by the Democratic and Republican parties in 1987 as a bipartisan effort. An effort it would seem, to help keep presidential candidates other than those for the two main parties out of debates. At a 1987 press conference announcing the commission's creation, Republican Frank Fahrenkopf said that the commission was not likely to include third-party candidates in debates. Paul G. Kirk, then Democratic national chairman, said he personally believed they should be excluded from the debates. The rules were rigged to ensure the two parties kept the debates open only to their own nominees.

The present co-chairmen of the CPD represent each party. Frank Fahrenkopf is a former chair of the Republican National Committee. Michael D. McCurry the other co-chair was Bill Clinton's press secretary. The rules require that to take part in the debates presidential candidate must have received the support of at least 15% of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations.

However, without access to regular television, or to the debates, or to the huge sums of money necessary to obtain public awareness of a candidate, this level of support is difficult if not impossible to obtain. That is probably the whole idea!

The debates have the following sponsors:Anheuser-Busch, The Howard G. Buffet Foundation, Sheldon S. Cohen, Crowell & Moring, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), The Kovler Fund and Southwest Airlines. Three former sponsors, the YWCA, Philips Electronics and BBH New York have withdrawn over the third party nominee access issue.

On Sept 21st of this year, the Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson filed an anti-trust suit against the CPD, the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in the District of Columbia Circuit Court. The suit cites the Sherman Act and claims being excluded from the debates is a "restraint of trade" denying competition. For example, it prevents competition to potentially receive the presidential $400,000 annual salary. In a country that always emphasizes how important free choice is, it is a bit strange that free choice must be between the two chosen by the two main parties and no one else.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/334203#ixzz28QowGOMx