election-year dilemma

[cellio]

I'm feeling conflicted about November's election. I can just hear the majority of my readers now: "You doofus! You live in a swing state! It's a no-brainer; you have to vote for Kerry!"

Well, except, I don't support Kerry. I don't support Bush either, and he'd be the worse choice of those two. I support Michael Badnarik, who comes closest among those running to my beliefs about government.

There are those who say that voting for a minor-party candidate is throwing my vote away. Actually, though, a vote for a minor-party candidate does more than a vote for a candidate you don't believe in. Every vote for a minor-party candidate helps that minor party get closer to the spotlight, which could (eventually) help break the stranglehold the Republicans and Democrats have on the American public's attention. By voting for the person I believe in, I (1) express what I really believe, which is supposed to be the point, (2) help keep the Libertarians on the ballot and voter-registration cards in PA, and, if enough others do the same thing, (3) get at least a few other people saying "so just what are Libertarians, anyway?". Not voting for a minor-party candidate because he can't win creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The alternative is to abandon those principles because "this year really matters" and vote for the least-bad viable candidate, which is Kerry. I disagree with Kerry (and his party) on many things, which is why I can't give him my first-tier support, but the thought of Bush appointing any more judges to further savage our civil liberties is frightening. Am I obligated to compromise my principles to try to prevent that outcome? But if I do, am I not just responding to scare tactics? So far as I know no one has recently won Pennyslvania by even a four-digit number of votes, let alone the few hundred that led to the Florida fiasco or the single vote that I represent. By voting for Kerry, am I not saying that minor parties are interesting as parlor games but not when it really matters? Where are those principles now? As the old joke goes, we've already established what I'd be; now we're just haggling over price. [1]

I've considered looking for a voting partner in a non-swing state. That doesn't help minor parties in PA, but it at least lets me help my candidate at the national level. I didn't support Nader, so I'm unfamiliar with how the vote-sharing scheme worked last time. How do you establish trust? Mind, I'm not convinced that this would be appropriate, but it's an option I'm open to.

With Nader in the race, I am not assuming that any other minor-party candidate will get any attention. But again, there's that self-fulfilling prophecy thing; if no one votes for them because of that, they certainly won't get any attention.

So I welcome further thoughts on the matter. What factors am I failing to consider? I ask that you take as given that I don't support Kerry; let's not do that debate here. This is about the proper application of principles in a messy world.

[1] A man in a bar asks a beautiful woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. She says ok, in that case she would. He then offers her $20 and she says "what do you think I am?!" He responds: "we've already established that; now we're just haggling over price".

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

There are two points I tend to make when talking with people who would like to vote for a third-party candidate, and actually want my advice. I'm assuming that since you asked...

(I also note that some other posters have made these points, or similar ones.)

Point one: We live in a country that goes by strict plurality voting for federal elections, and does not have an automatic runoff ballot. What that means is that you cannot rank your choices like you can in certain other countries. I've had friends who made a point of voting for the Green candidate, for example, because although the Democrat was their second choice, they wanted to make the statement of voting Green. If we had runoff voting, I'd say go ahead and list them as your first two choices. But since we don't, and you know that there is no chance your first choice would win, it might make more sense to give your vote to the realistic second choice.

I further encourage people to write and call their legislators and ask them to propose a bill to create runoff voting. I know that my state rep is actually in favor of changing the way we vote for exactly the reasons I stated -- he'd like us to be able to cast our first choice votes for a minor party, but then not have our vote wasted if that candidate loses (as usually happens).

Point two: A friend of mine from Europe pointed this out to me. When a new party forms in his country, they don't try to win the top spot right away. Instead, they run candidates in a lot of local elections, and create a grassroots movement for themselves. My suggestion to you would be to work towards getting Libertarian candidates elected to the lower offices (perhaps run yourself?) first. Doing so might also assuage guilty feelings for not voting for the candidate they put forth for president.

I hope this is clear enough; I haven't had time to think it all through.

[cellio]

I agree that our voting system is broken. I'm pesimistic about getting a change for runoff voting, but it can't hurt to pester my representatives about it.

I also agree with you about going for the lower-level races first and working up. That's my biggest frustration with the Libertarian party -- no sense of long-term strategy.

perhaps run yourself?

I strongly considered it when I lived in Swissvale. Now I live in solid Democrat-land, so I'd (1) have to pretend to be one of them and (2) probably fail anyway because the patronage is strong here. But maybe someday.