Analysis | The problem for third parties? America is not a political free market.
Analysis | The problem for third parties? America is not a political free market.
Americans are deeply frustrated with politics. They see the country heading in the wrong direction. They are regularly forced to choose between two candidates they don’t particularly like. Between 40 and 50 percent of the country identifies not as Democrat or Republican but as independent.
Here is what it takes to get on the ballot in Pennsylvania. Read through that, noting the difference between candidates for “political parties” and “minor political parties.” Imagine you are thinking about putting forth a challenge to an incumbent state officeholder but don’t want to run as a Democrat or a Republican. What are the odds that you get tripped up by the rules?
The problem, of course, is that Americans have strong views about specific things on which they are often not going to be willing to compromise. The Forward essay criticizes the far left for wanting to get rid of guns and the far right for wanting to get rid of gun laws. But that’s not where the parties are, because the parties are responsive to the coalitions they’ve built. If you simply take some independents and sit them down — much less partisans! — you’re going to very quickly find a lot of important issues on which there is not a reachable consensus. Then what?
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We need an alternate voting system, not a takeover of a major political party. At least ranked choice voting or maybe STAR voting.
I'm not going to totally disagree with you here, which is why I neither upvoted nor downvoted your comment. I think your chance for RCV or STAR increases if you take over a major party, because frankly, you're going to need to counter the old, dead weight that will fight tooth and nail to tear down your RCV framework. As much as I like Governor Polis in Colorado, he's still working with the people fighting to shut down RCV by making it so we have to jump through various hoops before RCV can be implemented State Wide.
We also have to be careful at the Federal level. RCV can work nicely for House and Senate, but we have a Constitutional Problem at POTUS that will take serious coordination at the State and Federal level to patch out. I'd hate for our current House to pick our POTUS because Harris got 269 votes, Stein got 25, and Trump got the rest. That's mandated by the constitution to go to the House, where Trump will be selected. We gotta fix that before we try to push RCV.
Maybe it's just because I've got a project manager's mind and see all the dependencies that I'm not calling immediately for RCV, though I am a fan of RCV, for sure, and will be voting for it in November.
I think your chance for RCV or STAR increases if you take over a major party, because frankly, you’re going to need to counter the old, dead weight that will fight tooth and nail to tear down your RCV framework.
Agree 100%. Get pro-election reform candidates in the major party primaries for local offices, and get them voted in. Then move up to state offices. It has to come from the states up, it will be rejected in the courts if it's a push down from the federal level.
They'll fight at the State level too. Look at Alaska trying to get RCV repealed.
Guys
Every single RCV initiative that I am aware of has come from a ballot referendum
Just put it on the ballot. Y'all are adding too many extra steps that require cooperation from the political class.
I'm crying in Texan: https://ballotpedia.org/Signature_requirements_for_ballot_measures_in_Texas
We don't have direct ballot measures/initiatives here, only what the legislature puts on the ballot for us.
Same in NC.
Texas has an initiative. I kinda agree with you that it seems a little unlikely right now but at least it might be good to help build the network out for a future day when Ken Paxton is in prison on federal charges and there's some realistic pressure possible on the Texas legislators.
Texas has an initiative.
But we voters only get to vote on it if a 2/3 majority in both the chambers of the legislature vote to put it on the ballot for us to. So it comes back to getting pro election reform candidates on the major party primaries and into the general in the state races.
For sure, in state courts. But since there already are some places with RCV, I'm cautiously optimistic that federal courts would be less likely to overturn any efforts that originated in and are limited to a single state. We've already seen federal courts gutting federal voting rights legislation in favor of states' "rights."
I think your chance for RCV or STAR increases if you take over a major party
This is totally wrong. RCV is already in place in a few places, and on the ballot in multiple states in November.
You don't have to have anyone from the existing parties on board to enact RCV. You can gather signatures, put an initiative on the ballot, vote, and presto. I don't even really agree that "both sides" are trying to fight tooth and nail to prevent RCV (it is mostly one side in particular that's doing that), but in any case it's besides the point.
Check fairvote.org, see if it's on the ballot for you, if so vote. If not then try to sign up with a group working to make it happen in your state.
The idea that most voters are disheartened with "both sides" and that's what's wrong with politics right now is actually pretty much backwards from the statistics -- people are getting involved more and more in every recent election, which kind of makes sense since "one side" is so actively and obviously dangerous right now -- but again, that's even kind of besides the point. The point is, keeping FPTP and pushing for a third party is going to produce exactly the opposite of whatever the third party you're pushing is advocating, because what you're going to do is split the vote with whichever their ideological neighbor is. Reform of the voting system is the only approach that makes sense, and it's currently happening at actually a pretty surprising pace.