on the nature of wasted votes

[rone]

I can't say when the American notion of considering third-party votes wasted began, but I'm fairly certain that the first time I saw it expressed was in the 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons. Since then, this sentiment has been augmented by the myth of Nader sucking away enough voters from Gore to tip the scales in Bush's favor. Today, this has culminated in the common plea from many to ensure the election of Hillary Clinton because of the desperate and unique existential threat that Donald Trump poses to this nation and, indeed, the world.

I will start off with a very simple declaration: no vote is wasted. Democracy, even in the misshapen state you'll find in our presidential election process, depends on every vote that is cast. Thus, every vote is crucial. To claim that one's vote is wasted because it was cast for an extremely likely loser, but isn't wasted if it's cast for the loser with the most votes, is sheerly disingenuous. To claim that voting for a third party is not only a waste, but not even a political act, as Clay Shirky tendentiously argues, condescendingly strikes at the very freedom of voting one's preference, while neatly delivering a Catch-22 of American politics: voting for one of the two big parties strengthens the two-party system in this country; voting third-party doesn't strengthen third parties, which strengthens the two-party system in this country; not voting doesn't accomplish anything, which strengthens the two-party system in this country. It is an inescapably defeatist narrative, which is usually supplemented by a smug suggestion that the only way to change the process is from within. We can see how well efforts to make the Democratic Party more progressive rather than neoliberal, or to make the Republican Party more conservative rather than regressive and nativist, have fared over the last few decades.

As for the myth of third-party candidates as spoilers, the basic premise is that third party voters somehow owe their vote to the big party that is in some way closer to their views. This is rank arrogation. You may feel that third party voters are misinformed, and perhaps misguided. You might even be right. But that doesn't make them any different than most voters for either big party; Shirky goes out of his way to impugn the motivations of third-party voters without ever questioning those of Democratic and Republican voters. Whoever we vote for will probably not accomplish what we want them to accomplish. Does that mean that our vote was wasted?

The fact is that this point can be made persuasively, as John Halle and Noam Chomsky have done already. In general, we would be better served by cogent points and dialogue, rather than sententious declarations, if not outright accusations that someone is voting wrong (or, worse, a direct appeal to fear, which is the backbone of the Trump campaign, and also informs many of my friends' appeals to vote for Clinton, as they are terrified —with good reason— of Trump).

Our vote is our voice in democracy, and it means what we want it to mean. It might not get us what we wanted it to get us, and it rarely does. But don't let anyone tell you that your vote is a waste.

Comments

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

So I just did a fairly deep dive on this. ronebofh is a California voter. The qualifying requirements in California (https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_requirements_for_political_candidates_in_California) are the nomination of a political party, gathering a petition to run as an Independent, or running as a write-in candidate.

I assume you're talking about the criteria a party must meet in order to be ballot qualified. In California that seems to be determined by a certain number of registrants (http://ballot-access.org/2015/08/29/california-bill-setting-up-rules-for-green-party-primaries-moves-ahead/), not the votes in the last election. So even if what you're saying is true, I don't think it's true for ronebofh.

Can you give me an example of a state in which the party's votes in the last election determine the onerousness of that party's campaign in the next election?

[opadit.livejournal.com]

It was the rule in Pennsylvania until a court order in June (http://www.ydr.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/07/01/minor-parties-get-easier-ballot-access-pa/86605528/).

To summarize, because the statute is a wall of text, the rubric is complicated. The nominee of a political "Party" (which ends up being just the Republican and Democratic Parties) has to get just 2,000 petition signatures across the entire state to get on the primary ballot for president and senator. But if you are a minor party, your president or senator candidate has to get a number of signatures equal to 2% of the number of votes won by the candidate for at-large office at the last general election. Compare Section 912 to Section 951 in the statute as it's currently written (PDF) (http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/US/PDF/1937/0/0320..PDF). The definitions of "party" and "political body" are in Section 102 and cross-referenced at Section 801.

EDITED to add and clarify: your "political body" doesn't qualify for political "party" status until your candidate gets 2% of the total vote cast in the state, and 2% in at least 10 counties, in the general election immediately preceding the primary or general election you're trying to get signatures for. (See Section 801.) That is to say, if you don't get that 2% plus 2% in one general election, you're stuck having to get 21,000 versus 2,000 signatures to get on the ballot for the next general election. Your question was, Can you give me an example of a state in which the party's votes in the last election determine the onerousness of that party's campaign in the next election? and that's the answer.

The stated public policy for this scheme is to keep frivolous candidates off the ballot. The counter statement is that there's no such thing as a frivolous candidate in a democracy. The way the law plays out on the ground here is that the Constitution and Libertarian parties can usually get their candidates on the ballot, while the U.S. Taxpayer and Green parties tend to be more hit-and-miss, especially in non-presidential election years. For the 2016 election, without the June court order, the signature threshold for non-major parties would have been over 21,000 -- more than 10 times the requirement for the established (more like "establishment," amirite) parties.

So there's a court order in place now, and I'm not sure what will be happening with the state's ballot access law. There's an HB 342 (PDF) (http://bit.ly/2aSlHif) in the House Rules Committee, (full status page in case the bit.ly link goes away) (http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/billInfo.cfm?sYear=2015&sInd=0&body=h&type=b&bn=342), that would codify the 2,000 signature threshold for all "parties" and "political bodies." At least one minor party, though, isn't happy with HB 342 (PDF) (http://ballot-access.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/our-objections-to-HB342.pdf), because it requires a county-by-county strategy that isn't feasible for parties with regional, rather than state-wide, support and resources. They present some caselaw in the letter that translates their feasibility issues into constitutional ones; I wish them luck. IIRC Democratic Governor Wolf has indicated he'll sign it; but he and the General Assembly don't often get along too well, so he may not actually have it delivered to him any time soon.

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

I didn't know this, and I take your point that voting for a third party in Pennsylvania means they need 19,000 fewer signatures to get a name on the ballot. What's the benefit of that, other than to a dozen or so petition gatherers who don't have to spend a couple of weekends collecting signatures? Has the party that ronebofh wants to vote for ever failed to get their candidate on the ballot because of the onerousness of the rules?

Because this brings us back to my original question. Let's say that ronebofh moves to Pennsylvania and he doesn't just vote Green. He canvasses tirelessly, so that instead of getting 21,341 votes in 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Pennsylvania,_2012#General_election) they get more than five times as many votes, the 115,071 required to meet the 2% minimum. Then what? The party has a dozen extra people who can spend two extra weekends building party support so that they get 3% of the vote instead of 2%? To what end?

[opadit.livejournal.com]

Can't speak for everybody, but I think the conventional wisdom is that it may do two things. One, it may put the two major parties on notice that a significant number of citizens are dissatisfied with the current status quo and want to see alternative solutions, new faces, etc., in government. If the Greens can get on the ballot regularly and get a good number of votes, maybe the Democrats will move the planks in their environmental platform a little more to the left. If the Libertarians get more votes, then maybe the GOP will, I don't know, privatize the New Jersey Turnpike, end the Fed, and abolish property taxes and public schools.

Two, there's a hope that it can create a snowball effect of larger and larger percentages of the vote every cycle. The hoped-for end result (after who knows how many cycles) is that we get a three- or multi-party system rather than the perceived Tweedledum and Tweedledee, "they're both in bed with Wall Street and Big Pharma and Big Agro, but I can't 'waste' my vote on a third party" choices we have now.

In other words, the conventional wisdom suggests that it's a long game for disestablishing the two main parties. Two percent doesn't mean much, and neither does 3%. But next time maybe this November's 3% will turn into 6% in 2020, or 10% at the 2022 Congressional mid-terms. Next thing you know we have more than two so-called "Independent" members of Congress. Or the states have a few third-party politicians working on their re-districting, re-drawing the gerrymandering that's kept so many state legislatures solidly Republican and skewed the House of Representatives the same way.