Yes

by John Lange

Created on: January 15, 2010

The premise behind the question is whether a 3rd party has a negative effect on one or both of the Democrat and Republican parties.  Considering the number of votes a 3rd party gets in reality, it may be true that every one of those voters would not have voted if they had no choice but the DNC and RNC candidates.  For every vote not cast for the primary candidates, the percentage is negatively affected, so 3rd Parties have a definite effect.  Whether one can lose to the other major party because of 3rd party votes can be illustrated by two examples.

First, let's use a fresh potential scenario and pretend Hillary "went rogue" and ran as a third party candidate.  Hillary MAY have taken some Republican votes and encouraged some Independents to still show up to vote, but we will keep the numbers simple.  If we had 1000 voters, 500 Democrat, 400 Republican, 100 Stay home or vote 3rd party, the results we be: Democrats 55.56% (of 900 votes), Republican 44.44%.  Now with Hillary and 1000 voters, 251 Democrat (Obama), 249 Third Party (Hillary Clinton), 400 Republican, 100 Still too lazy or skeptical to vote, that gives us an obvious change.

A better real life example is the election of Lincoln.  There was a Democrat split: Stephen A. Douglas for the northern Democrats and John C. Breckinridge for the southern Democrats.  John Bell was the candidate for a new Constitutional Union Party.  This four way split most definitely helped Lincoln.  If Lincoln ran against only major opponent, I doubt the same result could be guaranteed.  Lincoln won with less than 40% of the vote. Would he have received Bell's 12%, or would those voters have “stayed home?” Or would Douglas have won with 60%? We will never know.

Do not mistake this point of view as being against finding an alternative to the monopoly currently traded back and forth by the Democrats and Republicans.  Much is at stake and neither party really wants to give up the comfort they have even when they have to operate in the Minority role.  The real source of the problem is the voting system.  Some want to gamble that eliminating or circumventing the Electoral College would give their side more advantage, but that is not true.  Fighting for 3rd Party power means nothing if the voting system does not change.

It is frustrating to vote for a candidate in the primaries to watch them drop out before the process is finished.  We are left wondering how many total votes better candidates WOULD have received if early momentum didn't sway other states that vote later.  It is disheartening to hear of organized movements to vote in the opposite primary for a weaker opponent.  For example, conservative minded people voting for a weaker Democrat in a primary to increase chances for the Republican in the main election, OR VICE VERSA.  Sorry, but both (major) sides are guilty of playing games like this.

The problem is not the number of choices we are given.  It is how we are forced to make that choice.  We could either learn from sporting competitions or trust people to use a more complex ballot.  There are reasons that professional teams square-off against one opposing team at a time.  Can anyone imagine the NFL fielding three teams per game?  It doesn't work.  A multi-round election system could not be any more costly or start any earlier than the campaigning did for the 2008 Primary season.

The alternative would be a single-round multiple choice voting system.  We don't need voting per state to be stretched out over months and we don't need early drop-outs giving our votes or passing on support to other candidates for us.  Let us rank our choices and have confidence that the better choices are made versus the lesser of two evils survives.

In this way, "We the People" would have the power to define the Party's rather than be presented with a limited pool of people the Party wants to support.  The bad apples are crowding out all the good leaders that really are trying to do a good job.

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