A Way Out of the Spoiler Dilemma
With Ralph Nader announcing his candidacy for president, Democrats are fuming and no doubt preparing to use the same legal tricks they used in 2004 to keep Nader off the ballot in many states. Meanwhile, Republicans are cackling with glee.
But Republicans shouldn’t cackle too loudly. They also have been hurt by the spoiler dilemma. In fact, the GOP lost control of the U.S. Senate due to Libertarian Party candidates in the states of Montana, Washington, Missouri, Nevada and South Dakota spoiling Republicans. Many observers believe that Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush in 1992 only because Ross Perot drained away enough votes from Bush.
The problem is that the winners of our highest offices are not required to win a majority of the vote, either nationwide or in each state. Without a majority requirement, we can’t be certain in a multi-candidate field that the winner will be the one preferred by the most voters. How ridiculous: we can map the human genome, and send an astronaut to the moon, but we can’t figure out a way to hold elections that guarantee the winner has a majority of the vote?
Naturally people are having flashbacks to the 2000 election, when George Bush beat Al Gore in Florida by only 538 votes, even though Bush lacked a majority of Florida’s popular vote and Ralph Nader won 97,000 votes. A lot is at stake to make sure that the winner this November can legitimately claim the presidency and try and heal a polarized nation. Yet despite the spoiler problem playing out in the 2000 presidential election and in various Senate races, neither Democratic nor Republican Party leaders have done anything to fix this defect of our electoral system.
Fortunately, it’s not too late to address this problem. Since the U.S. Constitution delegates to states the method of choosing its Electoral College electors, each state legislature could pass into law — right now — a majority requirement for their state to ensure that whichever candidate wins, she or he will command support from a majority of that state’s voters.
We don’t even need to do it in every state, since the race will boil down to a half dozen battleground states, including the perennials Ohio and Florida. Rather than asking Nader or any candidate to forego his democratic right to run for political office, the Democratic and Republican leaders could legislate this right now. What are they waiting for? Time is growing short, but it’s in the public interest to protect majority rule.
One approach would be to adopt a two-round runoff system similar to that used in most presidential elections around the world and many Southern primaries and local elections in the U.S. A first round with all candidates would take place in mid-October. The top two finishers would face off in November, with the winner certain to have a majority.
But two elections would be expensive and time-consuming, both for taxpayers and candidates. So a better way would be for each state to adopt instant runoff voting (IRV), which accomplishes the goal of electing a winner with majority support, but getting it over in a single election. IRV allows voters to pick not only your first choice but also to rank a second and third choice at the same time, 1, 2, 3. If your first choice can’t win, your vote goes to your second choice. The runoff rankings are used to determine a majority winner in one election. Nader or Perot-type voters are liberated to vote for their favorite candidate without helping to elect their least favorite.
IRV is used in Ireland and Australia for national elections, in San Francisco, Cary, North Carolina and elsewhere for local elections, and in South Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana for overseas voters. Interestingly, IRV is supported by John McCain, Barack Obama and Ralph Nader.
Many people are criticizing Ralph Nader for risking a repeat of 2000, but only Democrats and Republicans have the power to change the rules of the game. We’ve seen this movie before and don’t like how it might turn out. It’s time for the Democrats and Republicans to produce a new ending by fashioning a fair, majoritarian system for electing our nation’s highest offices.
Steven Hill is director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation and author of “10 Steps to Repair American Democracy” (www.10steps.net).
Excuse me. “Majority rule?” The US Constitution says that our nation is a Republic, not a democracy. That’s why Gore could get 500,000 more votes than Bush nationally and lose (irrespective of electoral rigging and Supreme Court intervention, chads). Though “…only Democrats and Republicans have the power to change the rules of the game…” they won’t. Why should they? The rules favor them and allow for scapegoating any non-two party entity as being responsible for their failures. You see, the Democratic Party, vis-a-vis Al Gore could have pursued the conclusion that he, in fact, won the election. It did not. When the Ohio electoral count was challenged in 2004, there wasn’t even a second to the motion, John Kerry, like Al Gore, rolled over. They, like the Republicans, are the status quo.
Nader may have gotten 97,000 votes but it was the Democrats who VOTED FOR BUSH that must take the blame for Gore’s loss in Florida. That said, the way to institute change is not to beg the Democrats to make it. It is to break the addiction to the two party system en masse. In other words, democrats who believe in injecting some democracy into our republic, should stop voting for the corporate established Democratic Party candidates. To vote for them is to “take away” votes from Ralph Nader who is more democratic and progressive and than either of the two Democratic Party candidates.
All for IRV, but between getting the 2 parties that stand much to lose in voting for it, and getting voting systems tooled up in the next 8 months, I’d call it a long shot.
Guess that’s why it’s called CommonDREAMS
“To vote for them is to take away votes for Nader”
My point exactly! From 2000, 2004, and most likely 2008. However, the article brings up exactly the most simple and easy to institute solution to at least a portion of the problems in our electoral system — IRV IRV IRV - If your candidate does not support IRV, YOU should not be supporting that canididate PERIOD!
“supported by John McCain and Barack Obama” Really? Or is this more B.S. rhetoric never intended to be taken seriously or actively pursued. Time will tell. So far, the only thing our one-party system candidates can be counted on for their never-ending pursuit of lies.
Here’s another way out of the spoiler dilemma:
Everybody votes for either Nader or Paul, the only two men running qualified for the job.
I endorse Ralph Nader for the 2008 election, as I did in 2000 and 2004. I am now 26, and I intend to write him in as my first choice for every presidential election of my life. If somebody wants my second choice, I recommend support for Instant Runoff Voting.
We had a referendum here in Ontario about this. The right-winger talking point goons spent a ton dissing the system as a CommieFaggotLiberal plot to get shady people into government to steal our money. So only in the Big City, where we vote for socialists, did this thing get any votes. So, there’s a long way to go, for that idea.
Here’s what I though the article was going to be about - Nader should have Paul as his running mate. Then, they can “steal” votes from Both Parties with reckless abandon, WIN, and govern from some point where they share common dreams - which would be a much better place to govern from than anyone else is suggesting.
I guess Nader’s made his stand, and that ain’t gonna happen, but I seen some nice vid clips of Kucinich and Paul speaking well of one another.
Live Free or DieBold.
The only chance we have to “heal our polarized nation” is to elect a Democrat, and in fact, to elect Obama. The Republicans have no interest in healing our polarized nation, and it doesn’t seem like Hillary is that interested in healing anything; just look at how intense her desire is to be the Democratic candidate. She won’t be stepping aside anytime soon in order to “heal our polarized nation.”
Yes, indeed. Obama will indeed “heel” to the corporate masters. So will Hillary. They always have. Do you have any idea in my 59 year lifetime how many times a Democratic Party prez candidate has stated that they would “heal our polarized nation”. Republicans too? “I’m a uniter not a divider”. Ahuh. You see the divisions in this nation that we refer to as RED and BLUE are smokescreens for the real divisions that both parties refuse to consider, that is, the haves and the have nots having less all the time so that those in power can have even more. The division we have is, instead, between those who produce all the wealth and those who own it. Don’t expect Democrats nor Republicans to pander to anything but healing superficial divisions that help keep the corrupt status quo in place.
Boy, people sure want systems like IRV, but politicians in power hate it!
In British Columbia, the Liberal (similar to Democrats) government reluctantly put an IRV system (called “Single Transferrable Vote,” or STV) to a rare public referendum, when a high-profile, non-partisan commission recommended such a system.
The Liberals really stacked the deck, writing the referendum so that it would require 60% of the vote in order to pass. It got a stunning 58% approval, and was thus defeated by a minority of voters. Premiere Gordon Campbell noted the popular support, and promised action. That was three years ago, and nothing has been done.
So I give IRV in the Corporate States Of America about a glacier’s chance in Kenya. Even less, if people keep attacking the messenger (Ralph Nader), rather than spending their energy and money fixing the system.
How would we know if it wasn’t Diebold that picked who would be 1-2-3?
This election isn’t about who gets elected. it’s about what course our
country will take in the next four to eight years. A vote for McCain is
really a vote for perpetual war and increased attack on the Constitution
and Bill of Rights. A vote for Hillary is probably the same. A vote for Nader
is really a vote for McCain and i voted for Ralph twice. Not this time. Those
progressives who vote for Ralph in 2008 may enjoy a few seconds of self
righteous satisfaction and pay for it with four to eight more years of attack
on the environment and civil liberties. I don’t think the trade off is worth it.
So i’m voting for hope. Hope that a young, idealist senator has the guts and
the wisdom to stand up to what’s truly ailing our government - our corporatocracy.
If the Constitution continues to view corporations as equals to we living, breathing
human beings, slavery, in its many forms, is all that’s left for us.
re:”George Bush beat Al Gore in Florida by only 538 votes”
BALONEY.
BUSH LOST.
1. Gore Won The National Popular Vote By Over A Half Million (AP)
2. More Florida Voters Voted For Gore Than For Bush (SPT, CT)
3. The Supreme Court Selected Bush, 5-4. (Supreme Court)
4. The Supreme Court’s Alternate Plan Was To Recount All Florida Votes. (Supreme Court)
5. A Recount Of All Florida Votes Would Have Gore Winning By Over 100 Votes. (NYT, WP)
http://www.bushwatch.com/gorebush.htm
steven hill,
excellent suggestions. it’s interesting mccain/obama
(2 politicians who garner the support of independents)
support IRV, that’s encouraging.
————————–
vote green/libertarian/socialist/ if you choose, but put pressure on your local, state politicians and congresspersons (probably dems and repubs) to support IRV. i will always support 3rd party candidates in local and state elections (i’ve voted for greens and socialists in st and local elections in 2 states), however … i see the stakes for the presidential contest as too high. mccain truly means 4-8 more years of hardcore ww2 style military aggression. obama brings prog dems into congress many who are anti war candidates, like d edwards in MD, and he has continually stressed the need to listen and be responsive to his constituents. i will not vote for clintons in the general, vote your conscience in november.
please donate to sheehan……..congrats dennis…………
see you in the streets of denver……………..
..peace…
Thank you, Stiv, for pointing out reality. Gore won. He won in Florida, he won elsewhere, he only lost the all important Supreme Court Vote.
It isn’t only the Bushies who create their own reality and repeat it until the sheeple believe it! For 7 years, we’ve pointed out that Bush stole the election and still the Dems “believe” that Nader stole it. I guess their “beliefs” mean more than reality, just like their “hopes” do.
Stiv Whitman: Your post even has sources. Good for you! Thank you.
We can’t even get all the candidates allowed to debate. How are we going to make sure about voting?
By the way, why didn’t Obama and Hillary object to the ejection of Kucinish and Mike Gravel from the debates. Don’t they support the democratic process. I guess they do, but only when convenient.
so sad, so true, so it goes…
Nader is probably only a nuisance for the Democrats this time, but he’s a major headache for the Green Party. It’s nice that Nader wants to provide an alternative to the two corporate business parties, but why does it all have to be about him? Only a permanent party, i.e. the Greens, can hope to replace the Democrats as the major party of those who oppose Republicans. Nader can’t do that by himself. So if I decide not to vote Obama in the fall, or I can’t because he manages to lose to Clinton after all, I’ll be voting Green, not Nader.
There are two candidates for PEACE, Ron Paul and Ralph Nader. I support BOTH and I encourage all who believe global peace is a solution to join me.
Why complicate the system further when we could simplify it by eliminating the electoral college? One person, one vote - what a concept!
Another way out of the Spoiler Dilemma would be to round up all members of political parties other than the two government sponsored ones and lock `em up in those FEMA concentration camps!
A spoiler is ostensibly someone in another party who talks your talk, and “steals” votes that you think you are entitled to (by force of rhetoric alone).
There are only two ways to get rid of spoilers:
#1. Get rid of all parties except one. Won’t have to bother voting then, and then (by definition) there will be no spoilers.
OR
#2. Reform our archaic country from a non-constitutional non-Republic to a modern democracy, eliminate electoral college and the senate, and move strictly to population proportionate unicameral parliamentary body with Range (superior) or IRV (second-choice) non-electronic elections.
Or we can keep chugging along as usual, and see what happens when we don’t have the luxury of time.
jozef said:
“the divisions in this nation that we refer to as RED and BLUE are smokescreens for the real divisions that both parties refuse to consider . . . the haves and the have nots having less all the time so that those in power can have even more”
Amen!
Hooray! Finally alternate voting systems such as IRV have become issues here on Common Dreams. For a while, I felt like the lonely voice crying in the wilderness.
Instituting IRV or similar voting systems has benefits other than the obvious easy selection of people for leadership positions.
1. The influence of money from corporate and special interests will decrease. McCain-Feingold act to regulate politics will become obsolete (well - almost).
2. People will have greater incentive to vote for candidates who represent their values, instead of being forced to vote against something they do not like.
3. Shorter election timeframes will result, and in turn allow elected leaders to spend more time on the people’s business.
4. More candidates leads to a change in the mono/duopoly of the janus faced corporate party system in the country.
5. Pave the way for direct democracy instead of a representative republic (Okay - this may or may not be a benefit for progressive views).
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Leave it to “Americans” to be confused over what simple English says.
” jozef March 5th, 2008 12:24 pm
Excuse me. “Majority rule?” The US Constitution says that our nation is a Republic, not a democracy. …”
They are not mutually-exclusive concepts, ways of governing!
Definition for ‘republic’:
“1.
a. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
b. A nation that has such a political order.
2.
a. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.
b. A nation that has such a political order.
3. often Republic A specific republican government of a nation: the Fourth Republic of France.
4. An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation.
5. A group of people working as equals in the same sphere or field: the republic of letters.”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/republic
(Don’t double-click on text in pages of that website unless you want the site to automatically load the associated dict. or encyc. pages, btw. It’s how it works with my Firefox browser anyway.)
(An ‘order’, institution, corporation, any other business or human organisation, etc., and of any kind, is never a ‘who’ but a ‘which’ or ‘that’ thing, object, btw. The human members of these entities are ‘who’ objects, but not the entities. Religion and philosophy are not ‘who’ subjects, but ‘which’, ‘that’, ….)
Anyway, NOTHING in that above-quoted definition says that a republic cannot be democratic, and there are multiple democratic republics on this planet! Based on what I’ve gathered, Russia is among these other democratic republics; but it’s certainly not the only other example.
And isn’t it either the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights in which (not ‘who’ but ‘which’) it is said that the govt (of the USA) [is] established as ‘OF, BY, and FOR THE PEOPLE’, or ‘BY, OF, and …’, however it’s precisely stated, and for the prosperity of [all] citizens (while I’ll add non-citizens who are nonetheless official residents, and needing to be humane towards all others) which, and in turn, inherently and practically means the general or total population; additionally meaning not for the elitist, specially-selected or -appointed members to be the only ‘deciders’! Only disneylandishly could we believe that this part of U.S. law means less than a democracy in which [ALL] citizens have the legislated right to vote; ALL citizens.
The people still confused about what being a republic permits, vs not, need to wake up and start applying real critical [thinking]. I looked up ‘republic’ after having read, and several times, people claiming that the USA is a republic, not a democracy, and thereupon learned that these people are either wholly mistaken, or don’t sufficiently support their claims. F.e., maybe there’s yet another part of the Constitution or Bill of Rights that states that not all citizens are guaranteed the right to vote, and if this is true in the foundational laws of the U.S. govt, then it’s a truth that’s regularly left unmentioned. Yet, and if the latter’s true, then it’d inherently illustrate that these people are using the same set of laws, or the same legal source, in self-contradictory terms, for that’s what their legal source would be. And no set of laws or rules that provably are self-contradictory can be intelligently and honestly understood as less than hypocrisy, hegemony, law-making by FUCKING IDIOTS, etc.
If the above quoted definition is accurate and sufficiently so, which I obviously assume it is, then republic can most certainly be democratic and very full so. And I’m not going to check every dictionary, either.
Furthermore, the following is quoting from the ‘legal’ definition page linked near the top of the above dict. page.
“The word republic, derived from the Latin res publica, or “public thing,” refers to a form of government where the citizens conduct their affairs for their own benefit rather than for the benefit of a ruler. …”
I don’t know what the rest of that definition says, but what’s quoted above is really sufficient. If the rest does not integrally abide with the above, then the rest is flawed, and this post is not intended for such analyzing what that dict. page adds.
What jozef refers to is NOT a democratic but a dictatorial, oligarchical, … sort of “republic”, which, in that or those cases, is not really a republic at all.
Again, ‘republic’ essentially means The People govern! It’s a [public] way of governing! It’s like the usually selfish elitists, such as secretively diabolical George Soros, f.e., saying that they’re going to leave it to the ‘res’ of ‘the public’ to decide what the govt should (or will) and should (or will) not do; while the elitists fly or “scooter” off to their luxurious vacation resorts and for LONG periods, say. (Hey, people refer to the USA as ‘the land where dreams are made’ or achieved, right?!)
Bush and Congress don’t apparently care what the Constitution says any more — whether Free Speech, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom against unwarranted search/seizure, etc. As for Republic, we’re bleeding jobs to China and Mexico faster than we’re creating them, our VP’s former (and current?) company is largely based on the Caymans or Dubai. In practice, there appears little left of the Constitution OR the Republic.
Time to start America 2.0.
So basically it’s a moot point where we once were. The real issue is where we want to be in the future. I say parliamentary democracy, unicameral house, no electoral college or electronic machinery, Range Vote. The best that anyone’s yet come up with.
What a load of crap.
“Naturally people are having flashbacks to the 2000 election, when George Bush beat Al Gore in Florida by only 538 votes, even though Bush lacked a majority of Florida’s popular vote and Ralph Nader won 97,000 votes.”
Many more registered Democrats voted for Bush than the 97,000 people who voted for Nader. And besides, the numbers don’t tell the whole story — Hill completely ignores the deliberate voter fraud, butterfly ballots, the voters who were denied their right to vote after being “purged” from the registration lists…and on, and on.
But there is one more thing that Hill (and many people posting here, people who toss about the “spoiler” label) ignore.
Excuse me, but RALPH NADER HAS A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT. So did John Anderson (remember him?), H. Ross Pile-o-Dough, and any other candidate who meets the legal requirements.
Does exercising your constitutional rights now amount to “spoiling” our so-called democracy?
Yes, IRV would maybe help improve the current “system” But let’s not forget that the system was set up by Madison and Jefferson — not to be a democracy. You can fix a system as broken with ours with a band-aid designed by those who broke it. As Gore Vidal put it:
http://www.tompaine.com/Archive/scontent/2524.html
“The fact that the United States was never intended to be a democracy is so well known that it is now completely forgotten. (Hence the familiar, grinding incantation of our opinion makers: “We are the greatest democracy on earth, with the widest range of detergents, etc.”) The most candid of the Founding Fathers, John Jay, put their opinion on the matter in an artless but truthful way: “The people who own the country ought to run it.” James Madison, a preacher’s son, poured unction over this when he acknowledged demurely and approvingly the iron law of oligarchy that invariably comes to govern parliaments, congresses, and nations. The few will always control the many through manufactured opinion, which bedazzles and confuses the many when it is not just plain dumbing them down into the dust of what Spiro Agnew called “The greatest nation in the country.”
And as Gore Vidal has also quipped, “What we have in this country is a one-party system with two right wings.”
Obama? Clinton? McCain? Ron Paul?
Please….give me a break. They are all just more of the long tradition of oligarchy. The one-party system with two right wings. Or to quote Ralph, the evils of two lessors.
“Spoiler Dilemma”…like you could “spoil” meat that is already rotten.
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