We can't definitively conclude that Michigan voters who chose Jill Stein would have voted for Hillary Clinton had she not been on the ballot. Maybe they really, really liked Jill Stein. Since we can't read their minds, we also don't know whether they considered Hillary Clinton to be the lesser of two evils. Perhaps they felt the way Ralph Nader did. Minor party candidates may indeed be spoilers in close elections, but they are part of the democratic process.
71
In the American system, people who vote for third-party candidates throw away their votes.
From The Simpsons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7NeRiNefO0
28
Democratic apologia.
Oh, please. Not Ralph Nader again.
OK, if you insist. Yes, Ralph Nader allowed his own egomania to contribute to the tragedy known as POTUS 43. *HOWEVER*, Nader would be completely forgotten by history had not sexual-predator-in-chief Big Bill besmirched the office so thoroughly that the stains fell all the way onto his Vice President.
Similarly, yes, folks made a giant, and perhaps fatal, error putting a fascist demagogue wanna-be-dictator in charge, but if the Democratic Party had managed to run anybody but a stooge for Wall Street, and then asked voters to put the Clinton family in the White House for a 3rd term, we wouldn't be seriously questioning whether democracy will survive in this country.
The road to recovery starts with acknowledging that you have a problem. Unless Democrats wise up and stop trying to force us to vote for a lousy candidate whether we want to or not, we may well succumb.
Neither of those elections (2000, and 2016) should have been close enough for the 3rd party stuff to matter anyway. That they *were* that close lies at the feet of the Democrats.
Unless the Democrats start to wake up, own their share of the blame, and do something to fix it, we are doomed. Scapegoating 3rd party voters is not helping.
32
well said
12
I’d mostly forgotten about Ralph Nader at this point in time; sort of like how your memory conveniently fails you in trying to recall the first time you had explosive diarrhea. Nader still defending his spoiler status in the 2000 election merely proves that he’s 50% better than our Doofus-In-Chief: Just as narcissistic but without the idiocy component.
I was around when Nader first stepped into the limelight with his (in)famous book about General Motors’ Corvair, “Unsafe At Any Speed.” My brother had a Corvair and loved it. So did I.
What is it about people like Nader who simply cannot fade away like the memory of diarrhea? Gail, help me out here!
23
jill stein--another pathological narcissist bought and paid for by putin. her involvement in 2016 is why we have the putin puppet in the white house today.
39
The Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin Third Party won elections in 2016 and again in 2018.
And the American Rant aka President of the United States Donald John Trump, Sr. is in Paris winning friends and influencing people via his exceptional bloviating bullying skunk buffoonery aka MAGA!
9
The election is over, so let's blame those 3rd party voters for for voting their conscious. Why not? Your party offers a dreadful choice that we must accept to preclude an even worse choice. That is what you are selling today, Ms. Collins? In 1860 their were 4 major parties and those voting fools decided to elect a president from a newly formed party. How could they be so stupid?
14
Making fun of a man's bald spot. Shame on you. I expect more from the New York Times.
T.Lindgren
6
Thank you, Ms. Collins. Wise words! Destined (I suppose) never to be heeded--but thank you. Even Cassandra was permitted a mid-morning coffee break.
You think, of course, of Teddy Roosevelt--and his Bull Moose party. This back in 1912. And even so--he scooped up more votes than his erstwhile friend, President William Howard Taft. Poor Taft (I believe) came in at the very bottom. Revenge is sweet!
But the presidency went to Woodrow Wilson. A man neither of them liked--and both came to detest.
AND--
--I remember James Buckley WAY BACK in the day. In my home state of New York. Ran as a Conservative--a third-party candidate. Guess who won.
You hate VIRTUOUS PEOPLE. So do I. People faced with the nitty-gritty of life. And I know some personally--nice people! They'd never dream I'm saying these hard things.
"Well," said a good friend (an admirable person)--"I couldn't BEAR to vote for Hillary--OR Donald J. Trump. So--I wrote in someone's name."
Oh so virtuous, Brad! (NOT his real name.) You were a GOOD boy, weren't you. The angels in Heaven stood round the walls applauding, giving each other a thumbs up.
But Mr. Donald J. Trump won the election.
Pity.
But you didn't SOIL YOUR FINGERS, Brad--voting for him.
And I DID see a few angel feathers floating down--
--the day after the election.
Sorry, Ms. Collins.
Didn't mean to get all sarcastic.
Thanks for your piece.
22
Aren't third parties all a one-issue campaigns? I looked over the Green Party in 2016, listened to the Presidential candidate in an interview and saw someone who was myopic and shallow. A third party which was fully formed and competent might be an interesting concept to debate.
Wouldn't it be nice if the Republicans were not just flat-out evil and unAmerican in thought and action and rotting from the inside for decades...while my Democrats snoozed?
And you don't get medals for self-inflicted wounds.
We do seem to be united now with fierce motivation to right the ship and the survival of the American way of life hangs in the balance. (I'd like to thank the women who have suddenly decided to reject 'mansplaining' and do the right things--with a vengeance. (You go girl!)
The fact that every citizen in America didn't rush to barricades when McConnell urinated on the Constitution over Garland was a real eye-opener for me, I mean, are we a nation of laws or what?
If the desire for money is the root of all evil, then a bumper-sticker I saw a few years back is as salient as anything I've ever read: America deserves better than capitalism. The Citizens United fiasco is a cancer that must be killed immediately. Dark Money is okay?! Really?!!
The only way to get out of this hole is to stop digging and get busy becoming the educated, clear-eyed and driven to make the world a better place, just like the Founding Fathers assumed we'd be.
31
This is a terribly trite rehashing of the old “vote for us, or else you get THAT!” argument.
It’s an argument for the status quo, and the status quo for some of us, Trump notwithstanding, is still a version of one party rule: the corporate state with their wings in the centrist portions of the democratic and republican parties.
Imho, Trump and Clinton were equally bad, for different reasons, and I am still not unhappy that Hilary lost.
We need a system of weighted voting, so that third options can rise to the stop, instead of attempts to manipulate people into thinking that the system is what it is, therefore you must suck it up and make a choice that is no choice at all.
11
I am pretty sure that many of the people who voted for the Green Party knew exactly what they were doing. If what we get is always a government by and for corporations then perhaps we simply need to have a little bit of a burn down. The Don is going to do that for sure. If we survive perhaps we can get some representation at that point. If not, it will be a hell of a ride, and a good reason to go off the diet and take up drinking again. Or perhaps try a little meth for the first time. You won't need your teeth for very in the post apocalyptic world.
The trumpster has done one good thing though. It is no longer possible for the GOP to pretend that they were simply conservatives. We see clearly and unequivocally that they are a crime syndicate. They have embraced the Don. And those who refused the embrace are out. "So sad, buh bye", says the Don.
19
Trumpty Dumpty wanted it all
But he didn't get it, not even his wall
There was an election which stopped the erection
And now he begins his slow fall
29
It's long past time for the federal government to make uninform rules for federal elections. After all if they are "federal" elections then the Feds should run them. Uniform rules of how many polling places per population, uniform rules about who gets to vote and the requirements, and uniform ballots. If they are not enforced those in charge pay serious fines and get jail time. And any interference gets the same.
If states want to screw around with their own elections, so be it.
However, this will most likely not happen because all those backward southern states, still trying to fight the Civil War, will scream states rights. Cheaters like squishy rules so they can manipulate things their own way.
23
Two points.
1) If America adopted Oregon's vote by mail system for all elections, local and federal, there would be little to no voter suppression, or voters who skip an election because of weather, or child care, or work. It is cheaper and more efficient.
2) If America simply adopted a process where a candidate could designate that votes cast for them could "flow" to another candidate, then third party candidates could run and not screw up the entire process.
I could vote for an independent candidate, say Bernie, and if he didn't win, his votes would go to the Democrat candidate, and that "flow" would be on the ballot itself.
A simple change, but profound, since many of us would like to vote out and out socialist, or green, but remember Ralph Nader and Florida...
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
20
As always Gail is dead on. I'm afraid third-party candidates will always be with us because although they know they don't stand a chance of being elected their egos are just as gargantuan as candidates who might actually win. Nader and Stein being exhibits A and B. And the ego inflating rush of seeing your name on the ballot is something these country-be-damned narcissists cannot resist. The folks who vote for them will, alas, always be with us too because - as they say - there is no cure for stupid.
18
No "Puppy Party" ?
Shame on you Gail. You invented the "Puppy Party" by introducing us to Sheamus. What better representative of America than someone riding on a car roof in a cage? Sheamus could even claim he was testing the cages for future immigrant children. And even though our current president hates dogs, Sheamus would certainly get support from the newly elected Senator from Utah.
Puppy Party 2020
Cause it can't get worse than it is, even in a cage.
10
Ms. Collins denigrates those who said there was no real difference between Hillary and Trump.
Why doesn't she say anything about her fellow Times columnist Paul Krugman who throughout the primary campaign portrayed Bernie Sanders as the Democrats' Trump. I've yet to see him apologize for what everyone with a brain would agree to be an absolute idiotic view.
12
Greed and lack of accountability has brought The USA to its knees. The freedom of choice, hitched to a continent of vast resources, has given Americans the greatest opportunities on earth. We have the banners of accomplishment hanging from the rafters. We know about the cotton gin, the light bulb, the airplane, the moon landings...........
What destination has this pedal-to-the-metal journey taken us to? We are the most religiously free society on earth, and we take that freedom and decide to deny science. We lead the world in televisions per household. What do we do with this marvel of information? We watch idiots being scripted into bigger idiots on "Reality" shows. We have the most computers per household in the world. What do we do with this? We share food pictures on the internet. We grow more food than anywhere else in the world. What do we do with this? We mass process it past recognition and pump it via Madison Avenue into a lifestyle that makes half the country obese and unhealthy. We have the greatest universities in the world. What do we do with these? We pump out lawyers who break the law, doctors who push drugs, engineers who cripple the planet, and financiers who steal from the poor.
Our political parties mirror this. We got what we deserve.
19
Here in Maine, third party candidates gave us Paul LePage for two terms. LePage, who once called for the guillotine to execute drug dealers and who claimed that black men were coming into our state and impregnating white Maine women, was elected twice with less than 40% of the vote. This is one reason that Mainers twice voted in referendums for the implementation of Ranked Choice Voting. We’re going to see how RCV works out in our most recent congressional race where the Republican incumbent and his Democratic challenger are locked in a dead-heat. Bruce Poloquin, the Republican with a slight vote advantage, will likely challenge the constitutionality of RCV in court should he lose.
14
THANK YOU for this column! Those who vote for Green Party candidates in close elections deserve to receive one of those "Darwin Awards" for suicidal stupidity. Long ago, the French foreign minister of Napoleon (and others), Count Talleyrand, said, "The best is the enemy of the good." True then, true now. Thank you, Ms Collins!!
12
or, in other parlance,.. “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”
Gail you also bring to mind the likes of Maureen Dowd, and Susan Sarandon, who disdained the evil Hillary,.and numerous guys who said, “I just can’t vote for her, she reminds me of my mother” ..and didn’t vote at all. All of whom should be sentenced to wearing Trump wigs in public and listening to his press conferences for the remainder of his term.
24
When the Liberal media does not call out liars and fascists, I could care less about American Democracy (or lack thereof). It is a feature, not a bug. America Democracy is drowning with fingers around it's neck...and the 4th estate keeps spinning the lies for the propagandists.
2
Nader begat W.
W begat the Iraq war.
The Iraq war begat the meltdown of the Middle East.
The Middle East begat ultra-extremism with Isis.
Isis begat the Syrian immigrant crisis.
The Syrian crisis begat right-wing extremism in Europe.
Europe's right-wing extremism begat Brexit.
Brexit begat political idiocy.
Political idiocy begat Trump.
Nader begat Trump.
"Will It Go Round in Circles?" - Billy Preston, 1972
9
I have never understood this idea that once fascism comes, the "other side" just has to vote it away. Funny how nobody actually complains about the fascists who are voting FOR the fascism. No, they are coddled and comforted with endless NY Times' articles that "feels their pain" in hopes that they, perhaps, one day, will come to their senses. But, if you are not a white supremacist, you somehow owe your vote to the Democrats. Maybe people do not vote for Dems because they are not Dems. I know, crazy thing, this free democracy.
2
I like the idea of the Puppy Party. I nominate Mit Romney to Chair it!
132
I disagree about the third-party votes. If EVERYONE got rad at the voting booths, we might shrug off our lame two-party system. Sorry, but I voted for Gary Johnson in the last presidential election because the prime options were awful. Did I think he'd win? No, but someone's got to take the first step in reclaiming democracy. Guess that's third-party voters.
37
@Alex Fry,That only works if everyones vote counts. Unfortunately we have an electoral college. Until that is gone you vote by proxy for the one who gets the most votes.
61
@Alex Fry
Guess that's you handing us Trump.
73
Gail, Please stop talking to Nader. it makes him think he's important.
18
Bravo Gail!
3
Amen. Nobody accused the Green Party, its candidates and its voters of critical intelligence when things get critical. The protest votes of goofs and greens aft gang agleigh...
3
I think the Trump we have seen since the election is the real Donald. He has been abusive to reporters and anyone else he can abuse...i.e. Jeff Sessions. He has put in an acting Attorney General who he knows one day and doesn't know the next. He apparently went to Paris to celebrate the end of a horrific war just to try to start another one. This man is the epitome of every spoiled child having a temper tantrum. Instead of the spanking he deserves he is still getting a huge piece of cake which he doesn't deserve. Heaven help us!
29
Thank you, Gail, for this:
"The moral is that there are worse things than voting for the lesser of two evils. We wake up to him every morning."
Indeed we do. There is not enough Maalox in this world to cover that fact.
28
When Clinton spoke about the basket of deplorables to the uproarious laughter by wealthy arrogant brain tripping men, I felt not only revulsion but also a sense that I was in another basket, that of the disposables. So you vote for her, she has you trapped in Clintonian triangulation (strangulation)and then you are basically disposed of. Okay you might have to do it under certain conditions. But still you are being played the fool. And this is where Gail wants to keep trapping us into.
Gail for her part was in the basket of slightly cynical world weary supporters. The militarism, the neo-liberal policies might not even been that much "the lesser" for her. In any case the basket she happily consigned herself to was one if not of complicity then maybe resignation. Which is the basket she continually jumps into.
4
"We wake up to him every morning" ... the saddest part of the last 2 years and God knows how many more. The blatant lying and seeing a huge chunk of our populace supporting a blatant liar are the most depressing things to wake up to every morning.
25
Ralph Nader, world class mind, world class narcissist. When he was arrogantly getting under the skin of GM execs in 1960s he was our corporate dragon slayer and safety maven. Turns out he wants to tell everyone what they should do, which is more than a little annoying. He couldn't win an election, he knew that then, he knows that now. But, pretending to be about something nobler than his own ego tends to fail when he keeps asserting everyone who has actually run for office is terrible and incompetent. I hate to say it but Nader is just a less successful Trump.
10
Absolutely correct. Third party candidates are a waste of a vote.
10
'But about third parties. .... Maine has come up with a system .... . If nobody gets over 50 percent of the first choices, the last candidate gets tossed out and her supporters’ next preferences come into play. .... “Well, it’s been used in Australia for 100 years,” said Lee Drutman, ... '
Are we Americans really that crazy? Why don't we do the sensible thing like Maine does?
But then, I guess we are crazy, in the worst sense of the word. We have mass shootings every so often now and yet we let NRA fight shamelessly for the preservation of the 2nd amendment that was made when we did not know of automatics and we were afraid that if the slaves got hold of guns, legally or illegally, that would be the end of slave owning and white supremacy.
12
Can everyone interested in fair an honest elections at least agree we need to find a way to fire the Jeb Bush appointed Broward official in charge of the vote count?
It's Saturday. The nation voted Tuesday, winners were declared on Thursday and the black Senate and governor nominee conceded.
Now... this lady is still counting votes? Hahahahahahaha. She clearly cannot do her job. Her job affects other voters. She needs to go... black woman or not. We need to start electing and hiring people based on competence and qualifications, not on skin color representation and who we think deserves more votes after the elections are over.
This is silly, and very dangerous to democracy, to be playing with votes so many days after the election results are in...
You are quite correct, Gail, but Nader is also correct. They're not alike, but they're both terrible. The Clinton "Third Way" went waaay farther to the right than to the left. We already know about the murderous sanctions on Iraq and the similar abuse to children at home by cancelling TANF while record numbers of black men were locked away forever under three-strikes laws, to say nothing of the most dangerous and fatal labor contract ever forced on American workers, but here is one that everyone forgets.
In order to prove during the '92 campaign that he was tough on crime, Bill Clinton executed a mentally-ill and low-IQ fellow by the name of Ricky Ray Rector who had indeed done horrible things and then attempted suicide by handgun in prison; unsuccessfully, leaving him with a smaller skull. It is against more laws than I can mention to execute a convict incapable of grasping the moral difference between right and wrong. (The convict has to know why he is being put to death.) The same logic applies to the executioner: He must also know right from wrong. Only a man incapable of distinguishing right from wrong murders someone, even a murderer, for a bump in the polls.
Superb article. We must never forget JILL STEIN's EGO ELECTED DONALD TRUMP
8
I have always voted dem. I was sad the candidate was clinton. Knowing how racist most americans that i know are and the fact that she was beaten by obama told me that she was not going to sell. I would have loved to vote for someone like sanders but he cant even be serious enough about his canidacy to at least call himself a dem while seeking the parties nomination. The dem party machine forced clinton on us and now we suffer the consequences. Let us hope they live and learn.
2
As a long time habitant of the far left I believe that the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton is a rational and honorable decision. Yes: Even given what we have today. There is every possibility that the War-mongering corporate hack that is Hillary might have reduced the population of the world by millions had she been elected. Trump, a bumbling, racist, hypocrite, with aspirations be dictator, has (so far) caused the death of fewer people than any of his predecessors, including the last one.
2
Who will fight for the Maine solution?
5
The clouds are lifting
Hail Florida that swingest of swing states , the Republicans May prevail there but just barely, if they get by then they have squealed by like the rats they are, squeaked by with the usual Republican empty promises, lies, and dirty ads, all this with a booming economy, then why the squeak - because more and more Americans are seeing the truth, they see that the difference between Democrat and Republican is the difference between the future and the past, follow the Republicans means you are destined to strand yourself, your family, your city , your state in the past. The young, especially are seeing this.
Good times are coming Gail, believe it, as of now the republicans have only two tricks left in their bag of tricks, immigration and saying they will not raise taxes, the democrats on the other hand - hold out their hands and offer the future and everything that goes with it. The republicans are done and they know it.
So go to your re-count parties Gail, sip your wine, eat some avocado dip. See you in the future Gail, you and all of our democratic friends.
2
Sort of relevant to this column. I thought Maureen Dowd looked to balance out her criticisms of Trump during the campaign by bashing the Clinton offenses as though hers and his were somewhat comparable. Dowd’s equal opportunity criticism columns look embarrassing two years later. I wonder if she or other columnists ever acknowledged their roles on spreading misinformation.
11
Voting participation remains low, in part, because we make it so incredibly useless to vote for anyone who isn't a D or an R despite the fact that the majority of Americans disapprove markedly of ALL members of Congress, regardless of party and that a majority of Americans when polled on the question who represents your interests will answer no one instead of either of these two political parties.
Although I voted this year, I certainly did so with little enthusiasm. The Republican Party doesn't really care about anyone making under $10 million annually. The Democratic Party prefers the citizens of other countries who have made their way here illegally and particularly hates anyone who's a white, cis, hetero male.
With options like these and living in a state where the races are pretty much decided anyway, I wouldn't feel that bad not voting, and I'd empathize with those who chose a 3rd party candidate. We need to break this corrupt, rotten two-party system, and maybe that starts with us as a society rejecting both parties. Certainly I don't want to see Trump in power, but I'm not sure that we're much better served with shady crooks like Bob Menendez and Andrew Gillum in power.
16
Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make that omelet. So, what has voting for the "lesser evil" gotten us? A corporate run Democratic party that operates against its own base. If you saw Nancy Pelosi's speech after the election, you would have thought the disjointed plethora of platitudes that said absolutely nothing was a call to what? Status quo, that's what. (Not to mention the alarming display of early onset dementia.)
Without Trump, the dems would be looking at both houses of Congress solidly Republican with Hillary left with less power than Obama. At least Trump woke up the dems to get moving. All that remains now is for the dems to blow it with more corporate center right crapola. If the Democratic party does not reform itself and advocate for its base, the "blue wave" will turn into a trickle of lost opportunity.
2
This is why we need ranked choice voting in United States; several states I think use it.
"Ranked choice voting in multi-winner elections (also commonly known as "single transferable vote" or simply "choice voting") gives voters the freedom to rank candidates in order of choice and maximizes the effectiveness of every vote to ensure that as many voters as possible will help elect a candidate they rank highly. It minimizes wasted votes and the impact of tactical voting, allows voters to have more choices, and encourages positive campaigning and coalition-building. It upholds both minority representation and the principle of majority rule. Because of its proven history, its emphasis on candidates rather than parties, and its ability to allow voters to express their full, honest preferences on their ballots, ranked choice voting is the form of fair representation voting best suited for use in U.S. elections."
https://www.fairvote.org/multi_winner_rcv_example
1
I am a big admirer both of your humor and of your exposing the outrageousness of so many Republicans.
On the topic of your Op Ed today might I direct you to a piece in the Boston Globe Magazine of 10/17 by Jessie Scanlon, admittedly my daughter, which explains Ranked Choice Voting in Maine - and in general - well.
Best,
Lucy
https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2018/10/17/could-maine-new-ranked-choice-voting-change-american-elections/6VqNC73bQzMrPd0RSepA8L/story.html
3
I love it...we wake up to him every morning! It's a nightmare that won't end.
I remember when people said they were voting their conscience when they voted for Ralph Nader back in 2000. I said you're missing the point. If you're for the little guy the Democrats will look after your interest more so than the Republicans. All the GOP has to offer are Tax Cuts for the 1% while pretending to be populists or pro Christian values. It's always been a con job. Now they are out in the open and not even pretending. It's class warfare. The GOP wants to end Social Security, Medicare and every social safety net while giving more money to billionaires. They can be best described by the drinking toast of "He's to us and those like us and to hell with everybody else".
To those who still believe in having a conscience in politics - WAKE UP. Picking the lesser of two evils is always your best bet.
12
Hear, hear and bravo.
6
Gail left out a prime example of voter idiocy: In 2016 all those Sanders supporters who couldn't get themselves to vote for Hillary and either stayed home, voted Green Party or in a few cases for Trunp. Talk about crazy!
It seems on election day, fruit-cake is always on the menu.
11
This writer's columns should be in the arts section as they are more comedy & entertainment than serious & thoughtful opinion and discourse. As to why FL continues to have these election problems - the answer is simple. It appears that election officials such as Brenda Snipes are breaking the law. When we have video of boxes of 'found' ballots being loaded onto rental trucks well after polls close, we should all be suspicious. I have seen some lament that our election system needs more federal money thrown at it to better secure them. I would suggest they require a sheriff showing up with a warrant and arresting suspects based on probable cause.
2
still too upset to think about this clearly. democrats failed to clarify the 2 options in the nationwide elections. did they not have enough material to work with? No issues with which to clearly give voters a choice between ignorance and the ability to read at a college level? What, was it too easy?
I've volunteered for political campaigns both statewide and national. Each time, I felt like I was back in high school because the people I met there were more interested in having fun, dating, drinking & talking incessantly about how important they were. Bill Clinton did not surprise me at all. That is the kind of person who seems to be drawn to politics - yearning to relive the glory days of high school. They all need to grow up. This is serious business.
2
What is worse is when someone says "I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the candidates".
13
One the other hand the "Let's nominate a candidate who is not quite as evil strategy also has to go."
2
When people make the perfect the enemy of the good, nothing good happens. When the damaged and uninspiring runs against the narcissistic and the buffoonish, you get President Donald Trump, something well beyond than "nothing good". It would be nice if people understood this and acted accordingly.
5
Just another minor mid-term changing of the two party musical chairs cabal done by the usual “ angry “ voter drones....Not the infuriated avalanche so many Democrats had convinced (once more!) themselves would occur by the pampered people , sickened by King Trumps perceived bullying and hard talk that they are not used to hearing from their sweet-talking, crowd pleasing leaders of yesteryear..
People who vote for third party candidates, or don't vote at all are sillier and dumber even than those who vote for Trump.
People who voted for Nader were just dumb thinking that they were smart because Nader actually was the best candidate.
But when we are dealing with the hurdy-gurdy old-fashioned, creaky electoral college, reality says we should seek the least painful, least embarrassing and dangerous candidate.
Trumpites simply vote against their own self interest, thinking that cutting off their noses will spite the rest of us.
10
Slightly off subject, but if you go back and listen to some standup comic rants about politics and what was going on in the country in general when they were ranting, they were so accurate you would swear they had a crystal ball. Listening to Richard Jeni's A Big Pile of Me on political hypocrites of all stripes and it predicts the polarization we have today over a decade in advance (it is almost required viewing), and anything by Lewis Black during the Bush or early Obama administration is so prescient you might think he had been talking to time travelers. On his show, Bill Maher almost always hits on a subject that is so well examined that a week of CNN panel shows wouldn't scratch the surface. Last, listen to the structure of any Jackie Mason rant, those exaggerations are so well done that Trump has appropriated them as his own and regurgitates them so well that even Mason says Trump sounds more Jewish today than i do. It seems maybe our comedians ad a few columnists have done more in depth digging on what is going on in the country than elected officials, and although she doesn't play the Comedy Cellar, Gail could be one on the short list, as she would likely be comfortable in the midst of the practitioners there.
The myth that Nader cost Gore the election is just that: a myth.
In Florida, Bush won the votes of 308,000 Democrats, or 12X more Dems than the 24,000 self-described liberal votes for Bush, compared to less than 34,000 who voted for Nader. Half of all registered Dems in the state didn't bother to vote at all
Notwithstanding that Gore lost both his home state of Tennessee and Clinton's Arkansas, the coup de grace was the reactionary and corrupt Supreme Court stopping the recount and crowning their King George.
That being said, it's always a good idea to vote strategically. While it was "safe" for me to vote for the Green Party's Howie Hawkins for NY governor over the terminally corrupt Democratic Andrew Cuomo, it was not likewise safe for me to vote Green this time for my favorite hometown candidate, Steve Greenfield, whose policies, like single payer health care, I fully endorse.
So I held my nose and voted for the centrist corporate Democrat, Antonio Delgado, who recently moved to my district from New Jersey for the sole purpose of running for Congress. The DCCC knocked out two much more progressive primary challengers by funding Delgado the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Since he hails from one of the country's top lobbying firms, I have no expectation that Delgado will accomplish much for regular people beyond voting against Trump's fascistic policies... but at least he won't cheer for the troops to shoot refugees crossing the southern border.
4
Gail, thank you so much for bringing up the subject of ranked choice voting! Please keep talking about it. There is an effort currently underway in Massachusetts to establish ranked choice voting. It is so sensible and fair!
Ranked choice voting gives every voter the assurance that his or her vote will ALWAYS count, no matter the final outcome, because even if your first choice (say, the Green Party candidate) does not win, your second choice vote will be counted in the second round. It supports and strengthens democracy rather than tearing it down. It helps unify instead of divide. It encourages greater voter turnout.
Sometimes if we just used common sense we could go so far.
https://www.voterchoicema.org/
4
BEST. COLUMN. EVER.
7
Voting for a third party appears to bother Ms. Collins only when it makes trouble for Democratic Party candidates, so I think her points here are pretty meaningless. Not all of us are in the pocket of either major party; voting for alternative choices on the ballot is not always a protest, but a reasoned pick based on their party program. I voted for Mr. Nader in 2000, for example, because he was the only candidate with a plan for stopping corporate and banking industry influence on our federal government. If he had been elected, the financial meltdown in 2008 may never have happened. Yes, I knew he would not win, but the two major party candidates that year were symbols of the insular political establishment that would have changed nothing. There's no defensible reason why anybody should have to pick one, just because one was a lesser evil than the other.
1
There must be some reason that Florida cannot hold an election...and I suspect it has something to do with the republicans, since they always come out the winners.
5
For lots of guys the only thing worse than voting for the lesser evil is...voting for a woman.
Remember, the 2016 campaign wasn't just Trump stacking the deck with race cards, it was also nonstop contempt and derision of women, not just Hillary. I recall a Trump supporter quoted saying: "I can't vote for her (Hillary) because she reminds me of my ex-wife."
I thought men who are dads to daughters would look at Trump and see a creepy lecher or worse. Maybe some did. But it seems even if they'd never leave their daughters alone with Trump, it was ok to leave the country alone with him because their ex-wife was the other candidate.
Think about that: guys choosing a dirty old man over their ex-wives.
Makes you wonder if the real fear Trump exhorts and exploits isn't caravans of Honduran terrorists or illegal Mexican crime waves but women independent and smart enough to divorce men who are losers.
They look at Trump and see his harem of trophy women, particularly Melania in her 9 inch Manolos who's the perfect wife/lady. She lets her man cavort with a porn star, grab whatever tickles his fancy, engage in manly locker room talk, and in the middle of a briefing, note aloud how striking a female official looks and ask why isn't she assigned to the White House? That Melania stands by her man.
Maybe she can break the news to hubby that women aren't prohibited from voting anymore. And Blue Wave isn't what women do to their hair.
448
I'm glad Gail at least made mention of ranked-choice voting. I've been a voter since I turned 18 in 1972 and in way too many of those contests I've had to make the lesser-of-two-evils choice. Ranked-choice ballots would give people like me the opportunity to support candidates whose policies are more closely aligned with our values without the risk of our votes turning the election to the more heinous of the two main-party candidates. Our inability to express our dissatisfaction with the candidates presented by the elite-controlled two-party system by voting for NEITHER effectively disenfranchises us and is doing great harm to our democracy.
Yeah, I still blame the Green Party for Trump.
8
Jill Stein was photographed at the infamous gala in Moscow.
4
Hillary Clinton.
Ah, the insanity, the immaturity, the sheer cluelessnes of the people who hated her!
"And what did she do, this woman, to be so hated by him? When people hate with all that energy, it is something in themselves they are hating. Alex is hating all the illusions of boyhood – innocence, God, hope. Poor Lady Marchmain has to bear all that." Cara, Lord Marchmain's mistress, in Brideshead Revisited
Hillary Clinton is a good person. She may have had problems communicating in the fast-paced, hit-back-hard world of presidential politics (which Donald Trump turned into a cesspool), she may have been compromised, in voter's eyes, with Goldman Sachs (she wasn't), and she may have been a tad out of touch (Nancy Reagan wasn't an AIDS advocate), but she was a good person.
People who equated her with Donald Trump, for whatever twisted, childish reason, are living in a demented universe. A place we all have to live in now.
Thanks, guys.
14
SEAMUS- 2020.
Seriously.
2
"The Green Party says it had nothing to do with Angela Green being on the ballot"
A conspiracy theorist might think that Ms Green was a Republican plant, to distract Democratic voters.
3
If, during the 2016 election, you cast your vote for a third party candidate...well...you voted for Trump. If you wrote in your own preferred candidate...well...you voted for Trump. If you stayed home and did not exercise your right to vote...well...you voted for Trump. If you voted for Trump...well...
11
Rumor has it that the Puppy Party is already splitting into two camps: paper-trained and crate-trained.
7
Thank you, Gail. But it's a shame that this column even had to be written.
3
Good grief. Ralph Nader is still today the bad guy in a lot of movies playing in a lot of heads, but it ain´t necessarily so. There are a good many reasons why W took Florida, including voter supression, which Florida Republicans were and are very good at. Yes, there were a lot of voters for Nader but there were quite a few for other third party candidates, any of whom would have put Gore over the top. But the key reason Al Gore didn´t win Florida is a charmless drone named Al Gore.
3
@Edward Baker
89,000 votes went to Nader.
3
As it is with global warming, so also is the demise of American democracy and of the United States of America...inevitable.
3
In Italy, where I worked for a number of years, the jaded voters often told pollsters, "I held my nose and voted for the Christian Democrats." The other choices were either just as corrupt, or were communists, who, once in power, would have done away with all the messy voting business by creating a one-party state. The same happens with right-wing authoritarians. Once they have control of the levers of a deeply divided democratic state, they work assiduously to undermine the whole electoral process by essentially outlawing the opposition. Take your choice: A Democrat you don't like, or an aspiring despot who doesn't care if you like him or not because your views have ceased to make any difference.
300
"And it's one, two, three,
what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
next stop is Vietnam!"
So, what ARE we fighting for?
Was it worth the election of Trump?
5
It takes an expert on American political history from Princeton to tell me that "A third party will always be a spoiler..?" Damn, I could be teaching at Princeton.
5
Elections have consequences.
"Hillary Clinton was a depressing rehash of everything that was uninspiring about the Democratic Party. "
There might be a silver lining in this cloud if the Democratic party will wake the heck up and start giving ordinary people something that will make their lives better. We do need to adapt to a changing world, but throwing half the population under the bus while making a few people fabulously wealthy isn't going to cut it. The Democrats need a fix, and they need to sell it to the American voters.
I agree, the weighted polling system used in Australia and Maine would give people the ability to support minority opinions without giving away the store to the opposite of what they want. It could act as a communication mechanism from the people to the major parties.
Did the Maine system apply to the presidential election, or is it limited to in-state races?
The European system handles that problem well, but it isn't an option here.
Meanwhile, in 2016, when people said that Hillary was as bad as Trump, I used to say to them "given the choice between two equally bad candidates, pick the one that knows how to act sane."
(I never did believe that Hillary was "equally bad" but some people I talked to did.")
3
Nader is surely the life of the party. We can thank him and his followers, chests inflated, for delivering us the miseries of Bush and Trump.
7
Interesting how third-parties tend to be essentially progressive, sharing values like the environment, etc.that dilutes votes from the Dems. There are no third parties like a gun party, health care for no one party, a pollution party or tax cuts for the rich party or even the white nationalist party that siphons votes from the Republicans because they fully espouse all those radical positions and values - it's a broad tent and coalition of hate.
Since third-party candidates are frequently progressive, the Republicans will have nothing to do with the brilliant Maine vote solution. Third parties may even gain votes as a sign of protest but still have the second choice for the lesser of two evils count.
We need to throw out the primitive and anti-democratic Electoral College racket and adopt Maine's instant recount system to end the tyranny rule of the minority we are currently under.
We should be able to cast a no confidence vote for those already in power to remove them, indict them and jail them - before they do too much damage.
5
"'A third party will always be a spoiler one way or the other,' said Sean Wilentz, an expert on American political history at Princeton. In the end, Wilentz said, people who vote for a third party often wind up helping the candidate they’d least like to see win."
Duh. And to think I rejected an acceptance at Princeton a half-century ago.
1
You REALLY think Hillary was the lesser of two evils, Gail?
I miss Bob Herbert, who saw all of this coming way back in the 90s. At some point, Gail, we were going to stop getting more of the same.
3
Democrats agonize about the pattern of rural, poorly educated voters, consistently shooting themselves in the foot with votes for Republicans.
At least as puzzling, maybe more, is the Green Party voter. Not rural, not poorly educated, consistently voting in a way that puts in power the greater of two evils.
To sort-of-quote one of our great (yuck) leaders: "Is our voters learning?"
5
I shake my head in wonder at the behavior of the voting population. Take Oakland, for example, where we had a pathetic 29% voter turnout this past week. Yet if there is any issue that demands attention the other 364 days of the year, people will mobilize in the thousands and take to the streets. But where are they on election day?
Frankly, we get the government we deserve. Prediction: Trump will go on to a second term, but by then, frustrated Dems will finally realize impeachment is the last ditch route--and, perhaps, he will be weakened enough that the majority in the Senate will have to concur-- and he'll be out of office before he can finish a second term.
2
Simple question: Do you want to flush the country down the toilet, or do you prefer to make a "personal statement?" You decide.
12
Any Paper-Trained Puppy for President, 2020
3
Your last paragraph says it all. Some people on the left are just as rigid and ideological as the majority of right wingers. Common sense is sadly lacking. I hate to call them stupid, but an argument could be made...
4
You have stated pretty much exactly what I have been thinking for two years. Thank you Jill Stein, for giving the presidency to the worst of all default choices, and now in my state of Arizona, Kirsten Sinema could have won so easily, and she’s an environmentalist! (I’m keeping my fingers crossed) Don’t these third party voters understand how the two party system we have works? And then there’s the non voters. While getting out the vote, I talked to one who told me she was going to stay neutral and let other people decide for her. Don’t these people understand maintaining a democracy has responsibilities like voting?
12
This should be required reading for every Progressive.
4
We should totally do what Maine and Australia do--prioritize and order the candidates so we can have a more orderly election process. Of course, the weak link is that means the voters would need to actually think about the order. Still, that would permit a "protest vote" for a green party but actually include a responsible vote for a more realistic candidate.
2
Gail Collins seems to assume that the two-party system of the U. S. is the gold standard of democracy. It isn't. A country of more than 300 million citizens cannot have more than a choice of two political options? If you want to question the voting system in the U.S. you got to start with the "winner-takes-all" notion. It always leaves the losers of an election without any representation in the respective political body - even if they achieved 49.9%. Why should it not be possible - as in other parts of the world - to introduce a system of proportional representation? It would solve two problems at once: the representation of minorities and the question of third/fourth/fifth parties. And whoever governs is most likely forced to look for coalitions with others in most legislative projects. Not such a bad outlook for a society that is characterized by a growing antipathy of two dominant parties.
4
After Bush vs. Gore, I started to question the system that I was raised to believe was the most reliable and fair in the world. There should be a strong push by the public to create national standards for elections. The same number of days. The same access to voting places, as determined by the census, for all. It's ridiculous that people in some locations have far less access to the ballot. How many people have to be disenfranchised by our patchwork system before the public demands reasonable change to a system that was created for a different time, with different problems to solve.
6
In my youth I had many friends that wanted to "Send a Message" by voting for Donald Duck or some other Third Party (Ralph, Jill, Gary).
The end result, as you point out, is a vote for someone completely at odds with the values of my friends (Nixon, Bush, Bush, Trump). Because in reality these guys are saying thanks for your non-votes, come again.
I think it's a sign of maturity when a person comes to understand that 'the election is not about them', it's about the future of the country. Do all politicians have flaws? Of course. Will someones flaws slow down progress or destroy the country?
The point is, as many commentators have already pointed out, some minimal amount of research on the part of the voter is required to fulfill this important local/national responsibility.
2020 is coming. You can vote for hate or you can vote for hope. But don't throw away your vote waiting for someone to get the 'message'.
10
Also, those voters in Florida who voted for Jill Stein have cost the Democrats the Supreme Court for a generation. I wonder how they feel after seeing her sitting at the same table as Putin at a Russian banquet. She had his support apparently.
18
The issue of third parties is not simple. Sure, I wish that the "green" candidate in Arizona, who was not a serious candidate, had stayed away.
But I'm sure glad the Green party here in British Columbia has refused to back down over the last decade. Why? Because they kept at it, we now have 3 Green members of the legislative assembly and we have three Green city councillors. In a two-party world, one way you build a party is by...running candidates.
Without the Green party as a political presence, it is hard to imagine that we would be having the referendum on proportional voting that we are now having. In large part thanks to the silly little Green candidates spoiling everyone's parties the past decade, we are (hopefully) on the verge of true proportional representation in our Legislative Assembly. If we had had that system for our last election, in 2017, the Greens would have not 3 but 17 members in the Assembly.
Third party voting? Not so simple after all, is it?
I wish Gail Collins would retire. Her jokes are all the same and they are all obvious and by the time her column appears they've usually all been made a few times by others. Dull. I can tolerate that, except that the slightly humorous platitudes she shares make it seem as if life is simple.
2
You have an easy choice here yourself. Don’t read her columns columns if you don’t like her. She doesn’t have to retire on your account.
4
Here is an idea. The Secretaries of States throw a dart at their state map. The county where the dart lands sends out a postage paid, non traceable questionnaire to those voters who elected to sit out the election and ask why. The questionaire would have no requirement for a return address and no markings to identify the voter. No requirement to return the questionnaire. Ask the voters and don’t rely on post election poll taking. Let us see how valid “they are all the same” or “my vote doesn’t count” excuses are.
@Chuckw
Likely wouldn't get ANY response!
Great, spot-on analysis of the problem of throwing votes away on third parties, leavened as usual with Collins' puckish humor. I'm feeling the need for a lot more of the humor, that's for sure. But inaccurate headline; the election isn't over while votes are being counted and lawsuits decided.
1
Clearly, ranked-choice voting is the way to go.
But there are multiple institutional threats to American democracy. The easiest to fix (relatively speaking) is the Electoral College which has twice in recent years frustrated the will of the American people in a truly spectacular fashion.
The most practical way to accomplish this is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Democrats should be actively supporting it in every state where it has not yet been ratified.
4
Among the great outrages in a country which makes so many claims to being the bastion of freedom and democracy is its apparent inability to come up with a method of registering one's vote that is not susceptible to (no, not arcane cyber-sabotage) being incapacitated by wet weather and the resultant soggy paper ballots gumming up the machinery of democracy. Does the technology exist to devise something closer to fail/safe voting machines? Something, say, at least as trouble-free as the old lever-operated machines that have been put out for scrap? Of course. But gerrymandering and voting methods that are riddled with problems serve the interests of those who are in power. And, adding insult to injury, when an anomalous outcome occurs, we have the spectacle of blaming Russia. Yet another glorious facet of our exceptionalism.
We had a similar situation in the Oregon gubernatorial contest. The Independent candidate, running on a campaign/finance reform platform contacted the Dem, Gov. Brown, a week or so before the election, throwing his support to her in exchange for her support of strong financial reforms.
But here’s the question; in each case, why was it the third party candidate had to do the walking? Where were the Dem candidates, months ago, when they might have walked to the Greens, the Independents, working towards a stronger environmental, financial reform platform?
Your column, the Democrat candidates, party, seem unwilling to acknowledge change; to acknowledge that many of us see this party becoming just as corrupted by donors, contributors, PACs, as the Republicans. And just as willing to put the environment on a back burner....in the ‘ to be dealt with....sometime real soon’ file, aka the lip service file.
Third Parties promote change. Votes of conscience should never be disparaged- or made fun of. In this seemingly never-ending blame game, the Democrat Party need only look in the mirror. And I’m really glad I didn’t vote too early this year.
1
@Jo Williams It's the DEMOCRATIC Party!
2
Look at a map of the 2011 election in Canada. Clearly smart voters should have limited themselves to either the blue party (Conservatives) or the orange party (New Democrats). The red party didn't merit time for discussion, capturing only a few Maritime districts.
As several here have noted, maybe it's not WHETHER you have more than two parties. It's HOW you have them.
1
Issues are paramount. They should be the deciding factor in every election. I can understand how someone could vote for a third party candidate because of the issues; I voted for Ralph Nader in that horrible runoff against W. Some of my friends wanted to kill me. What I cannot understand is how a man as awful as Trump can be elected anything. Or how a nation can allow someone so morally decadent to remain President. This is insane! I’m so baffled; I think i’ll vote for Santa Claus in 2020.
So true. I wasted a vote on Nadar in 2000. I really didn't like Gore and when he chose Lieberman for vice-pres it was too much. However, should have held my nose and voted for Gore. Well, my state went for Gore anyway.
But, the same thing then. The Republicans had sucessfully trashed Bill and Hillary over 8 years. They were ready to and willing to mess up government for their political gains. They are always ready and willing to do this whenever there is a Democrat in office. They will burn it all down before even trying to save the economy.
7
I blackened the oval next to the Green party in 2016 and have no regrets for it. To me that was as close to None of the above that I could get. It was clear to me about the end of 2015 that I and my values were losers in the 2016 election.
My hope for the future is that the Democrats do a better job of candidate selection in the future.
But aren't the real villains of the present the folks who voted for Trump?
1
You really don’t get the gist of this relatively simple concept? You voted for Bush. No one “read” your protest ballot choice but a computer.
4
@Barry. You have no regrets about it?? You might as well have voted for Trump, like those "villains" you say did so directly.
4
The supreme irony is that most of those who voted for Jill Stein and the Green Party in 2016 were people who presumably favored strong action on global climate change. The result: US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and Ryan Zinke at Interior. Way to go, Green voters!
The moral (actually three): Every vote counts. Votes have consequences. Don't throw your vote away.
10
Gail, thanks for pointing out the fallacy of Nader's "they are both awful" argument. I would have thought the horror of what he did in 2000 and where it has taken us would have sunk in by now. Our history, and the history of the world in this century would have had a chance to be better but for his ill-conceived run. If he doesn't recognize it, we have to attribute it to either moral failing, or if we are being generous, dementia.
5
People often vote for a 3rd party candidate in response to the false choice made by the either/or of the Democrat or Republican ballot choice. It's a recognition of the big lie inherent in a two-party system: life is rarely an either/or choice, there are so many gray areas. The American system refuses to accommodate that reality and instead foists 2 distinctly corrupt options on a voting populace that recognizes the choices as false and literally screams for a choice other than red or blue. Worse, the American system offers no real way out. The barriers to going beyond the either/or are steep. You might even have a New York Times columnist berate you.
@peter
While your points about the system are valid, it's a shame you don't recognize the irony. You're insisting we face reality, yet you don't seem to be able to accept that once you're in the voting booth, there ARE IN FACT two people on the ballot one of who WILL WIN. This is reality.
You may dislike our system if you like, but it IS the system. Voting for the third party candidate is not "making a statement" and it is not a way to work to change the system - both of which would be admirable. It is simply denying reality.
5
It's shocking how many Republicans are willing to pro-actively vote FOR extremely ethically-challenged candidates---
-Trump
-Scott
-Kemp
and amazingly, Duncan Hunter, and his constituents knew he was already heading to court soon!
Republicans put criminals in office, then complain about government corruption.
Quelle surprise.
9
The ravages of the horrendous Citizen's United decision keep coming.
5
There is nothing wrong with studying the candidates for an office and voting for the person you believe will do the best job in that office. It is a principled way to vote, and people who do this should be applauded for taking their civic responsibility seriously. I'm surprised that the author of this piece disagrees.
Strategic voting for a candidate you believe is not the best carries with it its own risks and problems.
@D
Indeed. Yet, voting for one who can't win is what brought us Trump. It is that simple. Now THERE'S a civic responsibility for you.
5
Bingo. Nail squarely hit on the head.
The other thing we could do is make every high school senior pass the test that all naturalized citizens must pass before the student can matriculate. Nothing like an informed electorate, I've always said.
Speaking of Australia...they fine their folks if they don't vote, don't they? That would help the situation too.
Oh, and while we're at it, let's institute a new Voting Rights Act that includes voting rules like paper trails as part of the Act.
6
Ranked choice follow up note:
"Under ranked choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of choice. They mark their favorite candidate as first choice and then indicate their second and additional back-up choices in order of choice. Voters may rank as many candidates as they want, knowing that indicating a later choice candidate will never hurt a more preferred candidate."
1
I understand Gail's thoughts about the Green Party acting as a "spoiler". However, I think the real "spoilers" are vote suppression, gerrymandering, electronic voting machines that are very far from 100% safe from hacking and tampering, as well as the limitations on voting as a whole in this country.
IMHO, *EVERY* state should have mail-in voting as Oregon and Washington State do. That would (I think) eliminate many problems, including people waiting for hours and hours to cast their vote at their local polling place (of course one particular political party loves that (waiting in line for hours) because it discourages certain kinds of (non-white) people from voting. We need Federal Election reform that all 50 states would have to follow.
2
Both myth and moral philosophy teach this basic lesson: you must always choose the lesser of two evils. We usually focus on the notion that sometimes there are no good options--Scylla or Charybdis, Odysseus?
But Collins underscores the real crux of the matter: you must choose.
8
@Victoria Pedrick
"you must choose"
Exactly. Anything else is navel gazing . Third-party voters are chattering among themselves, self-absorbed and aggrandizing their own motives in their own heads - but their actions have real-world consequences they will not take responsibility for. You cast a ballot, you make a choice. (Or, you DON'T cast a ballot, you still make a choice.)
5
You are correct that voting for a third party candidate usually helps the party you agree with least. The real blame lies with the vanity of most third party candidates. Most people think they could do a better job than elected candidates, but in our republic compromises are unavoidable. Ralph Nader worked on too many great causes to list. He and Jill Stein caused more damage with with their vanity campaigns than all their previous good works. Thanks for nothing Jill and Ralph.
4
There has never been any doubt in my mind that those who opted to vote for third-party candidates in the 2016 presidential election as some form of protest, actually helped Donald Trump get into the White House.
And while I can understand their sentiments, with each passing day of Trump's increasing pettiness and moral terpitude, I can't forgive them for their shortsightedness and I hope they've learned the moral of their actions.
The rest of us have to live with it.
9
"Even if both candidates in a major election seem terrible, deep in your heart you know one is more terrible than the other. Refuse to acknowledge that, and you’re skipping down the path toward Donald Trump."
Both parties know that. They use it, against the voters.
The one so sure of claiming better feels free to betray all.
Post election, the rosy glasses of hindsight refuse to see the "hold your nose" feelings widely expressed before the election by Her own supporters. That is just wrong. If that is your campaign, you lose.
And whose fault is it? The ones who chose to do that, not the voters who wouldn't put up with it.
3
It is truly sad that the “protest” voters who insisted on supporting Bernie or Jill in the general election did not get they were actually voting for the tragic disaster of the current administration. Once past the primaries there is no alternative to voting for who one may view as the lesser of two evils.
8
I have compassion for the people who've felt compelled to vote for a third party candidate instead of the lesser of two evils. It is hard to relegate your morals and values to the side just to ensure the most evil will not win. I've had to tell my own conscience to be quiet more times than I can count, and it's left me feeling a little dirty when I exited the voting booth.
We have to recognize that third party voters aren't always casting a protest vote, but are actually choosing the person they feel is best. We can't fault them for that. Neither can we fault their candidate for running or remaining in the race. The blame must rest on the Republican or Democratic candidates who were unable to bring these people into the fold by their lack of wisdom or decency or goals. When we are able to present the best of the very best from both parties we'll have the clearest choices for everyone.
In the meantime, the ranked choice ballot should go forward in every state; I, for one, would welcome the chance to vote my conscience without fearing I might be doing great harm.
8
@woodswoman
"It is hard to relegate your morals and values to the side just to ensure the most evil will not win."
Um … no, it's not. Really. Just get a grip on yourself and realize you must do the right thing. Making sure the most evil will not win IS the moral choice.
"I, for one, would welcome the chance to vote my conscience without fearing I might be doing great harm"
In other words, it's all about you, and making sure you experience no difficult feelings when you exit the voting booth. But the rest of us aren't interested in your feelings and your private struggles with your conscience. This isn't what a democracy is about - making voters feel good about their choices. It's about who's actually going to get elected and what they're going to do when they get elected. If you can force yourself to look at reality rather than staying involved with your own internal turmoil, you'll find vote casting easier.
6
@woodswoman: Those who voted for Hillary, either because they found her to be the best, or the lesser of two evils, also voted their values and conscience, and they voted for the person who they thought was best in the given situation. Same for the Trump voters. But I agree that ranked voting is the preferable way to go.
2
Superb. The "they're all the same I'm not bothering to vote" people should all have to do 30 days community service. How crazy does one of the candidates have to be to get these folks to vote? What about the Bernie voters who felt, rightly, dissed by the party in 2016, and voted for Trump or stayed home in protest? Take that, Hilary that'll teach you! Funny, except look where we are.
445
I like this idea. Given the abysmal level of voting in this country, 30 days of public service might just be enough to help with our infrastructure problem. Don't want to participate in democracy? Help us repair this bridge.
89
@Rich888
I agree but would like to point out that the great majority of Bernie supporters ended up voting for Hilary. (Here in Nevada the stories about Bernie supporters' hostility to Clinton turned out to be false news planted by the Russians.) It's also a false narrative to blame Bernie supporters for Trump's win, instead of all the people who actually voted for Trump because they liked him, although I agree wholeheartedly with Gail's point that this is not the time for Democrats to vote for third party candidates. On the other hand, if Republicans want to vote for Democrats or third party candidates, let's cheer them on.
48
@Clearheaded
Would you trust the integrity of a bridge built or reinforced by a disgruntled voter? Be careful what you wish for.
21
Your picture raises questions. Are all those well-fed, nattily-dressed people actors hired by Republican donors? Don’t people work on Friday afternoon in Florida? Who was passing out all those American flags especially ones on auditorium-size staffs?
In Europe, small parties can join a coalition after the election and agree upon who their representatives will elect as Prime Minister. In the U.S., 3rd parties can’t do that after elections so they end up diluting the vote for one candidate or the other. The problem is U.S. 3rd parties get started but never do the ground work to quickly grow into a potent, sustainable, political force. They create flashes in the pan.
Now, look at the right-wing. The Tea Party joined with the GOP rather than dilute or split the vote and lose to the Democrats.
We must deal with the system we have. Not doing that has enabled oligarchs, cheap and mean Trumper politicians, and has nearly cost us our democracy.
Wildlife scientists call a large, full-grown cougar a successful animal. It started life kitten-size. How did it succeed – grow so large and powerful? By unwavering focus, cleverness, and ability to adapt. Humans succeed the same way – as Democrats did in the last election. And as Trump does by spewing an entertaining, potty-mouth news cycle each day coordinated with Fox Propaganda, Inc.
Stay focused and win.
223
If a perfect man or woman appears on my ballot, I will vote for him or her. In the meantime, I'll vote for an imperfect human being and hope for the best.
383
@Eleanor Just vote for the Democrat. They’re not perfect but the other guys are nuts.
39
“A third party will always be a spoiler one way or the other”
No. They are a check on the parties. If a party defies its own base, it will lose.
Third parties are the penalty, the check on the freedom of a party to ignore its voters. If party leaders give way to their own egos, to act "strategically" for power rather than the purpose of power, then they won't get power either.
To say a third party is a spoiler is establishment-centric. It assumes that one or the other must win, and it is always a good thing if it is yours.
Sometimes it is not a good thing to be betrayed. Compromise, sure, that is part of life. But open betrayal is too much, and the third parties let voters draw that line.
3
@Mark Thomason
"They are a check on the parties"
They are? You're seeing things I'm not seeing. Can you explain exactly how the third parties are presently exercising a "check" on anything going on with this administration?
5
For many years I associated Ralph Nader with pioneering consumer activism. Then came the 2000 election and the part Nader played in giving us the George W. Bush presidency. He may still feel “ O.K.” about it, according to Gail, but I find it very hard to forgive him for helping to elect a president that he knew full well was - “Unsafe at Any Speed,” and that goes double for the Stein and Johnson voters in 2016.
713
@Susan
Let's not forget about Ross Perot taking 17% of the Bush vote, with significant support from Democrats, which allowed Clinton/Bush to win with 43% of the popular vote. With ranked choice voting, Clinton would never have won in 1992, Gore would never have been a contender in 2000, Hillary would never have been Senator or Secretary of State.
Let's say we'd have had ranked choice voting in 2016 for the first time. In addition to the Republican and Democrat nominees, Bloomberg, Sanders, Rubio, JEB, along with eight other candidates would have been on the ballot. Hillary would not have won.
9
@ebmem
I voted for Ross Perot.
Why are all these people trying to limit voters choices? Haven't they learned anything from the healthcare/abortion campaign?
Keep your hands off of other people choices. Period. Gail chooses for her, who to vote for and what medical procedures she undergoes. The rest of us deserve the same choices as the elites. You pay for your choices, we will pay for ours.
Ain't nobody who understand the rules of the Electoral College who can say with an honest face that Hillary Clinton was the country's choice.
4
@Susan
Don't blame Nader for running.
Blame the Florida election officials, the Century City residents who were confused by the ballot, and the Supreme Court who installed Jeb Bush's brother...
The Bushes, and their wars, effectively bankrupted our country and the workers had to bail the biggies out. Now, stocks are soaring and they are profiting again.
And telling us, who resued them and their fortunes with our tax dollars, what to do... When will they learn to listen to OUR marching orders?
32
The perennial dismay at the very real distortions produced by third-party candidates always ignores a very important point. People vote for those candidates in order to express their dissatisfaction with the major candidates. But far more potential voters express their unwillingness to support them by simply staying home.
The effect is exactly the same.
But while we court the non-voters and plead with them, we express our disdain, as the author does here, for the ones who at least cared enough to come out and exercise their rights.
I agree totally. I am a Dem but detest Cuomo and just couldn't bring myself to pull the lever (or the scanner) for him. So I impulsively voted for the Green Party which I deeply regret. Not that Cuomo needed my vote but that was such a useless, empty, juvenile protest on my part. So you're right Gail and I won't do that again.
318
@Jay Why
I do lesser evil voting, but in New York you were perfectly safe voting for a tree stump if you wanted. There is a dreary logic to voting lesser evil when it matters, but no particular reason to do so when it doesn’t. Someone will say “ what if everyone thinks that way?” In that case we might see third party candidates winning.
12
@Donald "Safe" protest voting isn't always safe. Every PA voter I know who voted 3d party or not at all in 2016 said afterwards, "I never thought Trump would win."
78
I totally agree. He is a corrupt male Hillary. I won’t vote for him in the 2020 primary and if he wins I will just not vote in the general. But never a third party.
3
What this country needs is mandatory voting, as in Australia, plus mail-in ballots for every state of the union with a one-month deadline for voting. No more Electoral College; one person, one vote and Senate seats apportioned by population.
269
And if a person does not vote say in two successive elections they are purged from the system for 20 years.
4
@Christy, we already have representatives apportioned by population, it’s called the House of Representatives. As for the Electoral College, that too is apportioned by population, exactly the same as the House of Representatives. Understand how it works before you call for it to be scrapped.
2
@Larry - I think she knows how it works Larry. One person, one vote would be more representative.
While we're at it, we could throw out the current money based campaign system and institute the British model: limited time frame and public financing (effectively). Just imagine, our representatives and senators might get some governing done!
45
Elephant in the room here is that a full 5 million people in Florida chose not to cast a ballot at all.
If they had all done a write-in vote they could have handily elected a Senator since both the D's and the R's only got about 4.1M votes each (there are about 13.2M registered voters).
Why all the nonvotes? What motivated them? Is it bad?
81
@Michael
Laziness? Indifference? "Too much trouble"?
Take your pick.
7
A lot of people complain about the absence of good choices when they get to the voting booth. Those people fail to see that the voting booth is the last stop in a long process. And by then, the significant choices have already been made.
In a system like ours, dominated by two parties, the more significant choices occur at two earlier stages:
1) Who will choose to run for office?
2) Who will win the primary?
Failing attention to those stages, you are stuck with the choices you get in November. So, join a party (preferably Democratic) and become active at some local level. You'll be surprised: it's actually pleasant.
161
@Duane McPherson,
",,,Those people fail to see that the voting booth is the last stop in a long process. And by then, the significant choices have already been made."
I hope you have read or will read, Republic, Lost by Lawrence Lessig. He quotes Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall corruption fame as saying something to the effect of "You can vote for anyone you want. Just let me do the nominating."
11
Well said Gail! I hope the three self righteous friends I used to have read this column and recognize themselves. They proudly reported casting their votes for Jill Stein for the exact reasons you state here - Hillary’s baggage and Trump’s awfulness. I could never forgive them. They voted for Trump, no matter what they think. I can’t bear to see or talk to them anymore.
316
@RC
Maybe you should start talking to them about 2020...
10
Voting for a president or a governor has always been an exercise of pragmatism for me. It's not the person per se, it's the ideology all the other people they will bring to the mix, e.g. their cabinet members, their administrators, their judicial nominations, and the people with whom they will surround themselves.
In one voting cycle, 2016, we have lost the judiciary for a generation. It's gone people. The Federalist Society is in charge of the judiciary now. We have lost any momentum towards government supporting any kind of climate change plan and the human infrastructure of scientific knowledge is going away or is gone because we lost one voting cycle.
389
The focus of third parties on major, national positions is a joke, on the parties, on their members, and on the rest of the electorate. How many of these parties have members in state-wide offices? Here in California, home of the fruit loops, the highest level achieved by self-identified third party candidates is the non-partisan county positions - clerk, assessor, etc. - where local, personal connection and competence in the job are paramount.
2
I always find it so so sad and ironic that those people who vote Green Party always help elect the person most likely to destroy the environment. What up with that Green voters?
50
Thank you, Gail! You nailed it perfectly. You spoke honestly, candidly, clearly and persuasively!
And, if you ever run for the presidency, I'd never vote for you. (Take that as a compliment!)
6
Really, perhaps the best Collins column yet.
Preferential voting is the best way to allow voting and to discount aggressive self-righteous parties and candidates.
Ms. Green of the Greens is a wonderful example of moral arrogance and political incompetence in one tidy bundle.
13
We need a third party, true. But during elections when what’s on the line includes combatting white nationalism, tamping down rallies that encourage violence and hate, shoring up our precious relationships with allies, investigating Russian interference in our free elections, and combatting the undermining of constitutional law—perhaps this is not the time to vote for candidates with absolutely no chance of winning. If you feel satisfied while synagogues bury their dead, and Trump fires everyone who would curb his most unconstitutional impulses, that’s not much of a morally superior position. Watch a couple of October’s trump rallies and then cast that vote. A pugalustic authoritarian should not be enabled by wasted votes.
7
People who vote for 3rd party candidates are political Darwin Award winners, doing something monumentally dumb, oblivious to the risk involved, completely stupified by the outcome. The only difference between these people and real Darwin winners is that most of them keep showing up at the polls every election cycle. Bring on ranked choice voting!
As for Florida, much as I hate to say it, watching the elections down there has given me the sudden urge to start burning enormous amounts of fossil fuels, really get the global warming and rising oceans thing cranked up. The sooner, the better.
9
Ask those who voted for the Green Party instead of Hillary if they're happy with the Federalist Society Supreme Court of corporatists (originalist is but a mask) and pro-lifers, or a racist AG (replaced by a hound dog for the president) an anti-science EPA, a predatory mortgage banker in Treasury, a billionaire advocate for private religious schools heading Education...and on and on. Venting disenchantment is one thing. Throwing out the baby with the bath water is another.
15
Finally a serious column! Yes your readers are old enough to hear the truth. Much of life is choosing the lesser of two evils. We fought hard for Bernie in the primaries and when he did not get the nomination we voted for Clinton, a despicable characterless opportunist like her spouse. Never attack the good with the perfect. The bad is always worse.
3
It's too late to reform the vote-count. What the US needs is an emergency Electoral Front, composed of Democrats, ex-Republicans, and moderate independents.
A few well known facts. Bannon is quoted, recently, as saying that democratic institutions, and even Justice, are room decor, nice, but 'irrelevant', to use his words. What counts is how many angry men you can mobilize into mobs, by calling them The Little Man. The grievances he ticks off are real -- just as German poverty was, in 1933. It's more dangerous than it sounds. In 1933 German misery was palpable; today, outrage is manufactured on some console located in a rec room, then tweeted out by Trump. Anyone for Pizzagate? Millions believe in it.
That's 'populism' for ya. Trump, still Bannon's boy, thinks only of roaring rallies, and avoiding personal-felony prosecution. No truth can stand. The old Republican Party is dead. Hours after the mid-terms, Trump ramps up the radicalism. This Whitaker creature looks like bar bouncer and talks like one. Trump is a lowlife, but he's following the dictator script.
7
I always thought that third party voters were people who would not have voted at all but for the choice. But since they have enough civic pride to vote a second choice should be available. But in a world of exact match, photo ID, etc etc etc, we have to come to the realization that the powerful only want the right people to vote.
1
Very amusing, and so true about third party candidates. A minor correction: The tallying going on in Arizona and Florida right now is the vote count. Not a recount. Same is true here in California. We're still in the middle of our vote counting. Here it's because so many people use mail-in ballots, and I assume the same is true in AZ and FL. It's not an issue in CA, even though there are still a half-dozen House races that remain up in the air. In Arizona and Florida, Republicans are having fits. It's almost like they don't want the votes to be counted at all.
25
@Amelia
I have gone back to in-person voting, because it upsets me that races are called before they even count my mail-in ballot! Even if my candidate is the one who wins (Sherrod Brown in Ohio.)
In December 2016 we were told elections have consequences, I am waiting for the Democrats to show us some, work on repairing the damage that the Republicans/Trump did to ACA. Push Republicans/Trump to fix DACA
Investigation of various Trump appointed officials including Bolton and their ties with the War Machines (Military industrial Complex)
For starters the consequences of this election should be
1. Paying workers a living wage,
2. Healthcare from conception to death for every US persons as a Right.
3. Restoring Civil Rights protection taken away by this Administration
11
@Wizarat: Too late for now. The Democrats have the House, but the Republican dominated Senate won't pass proposals, if they do, Trump won't sign them into law, and if Trump does, the Supreme Court will rule them unconstitutional. What the Democrats need is winning the House again and Senate and Presidency in 2020, at least two conservative Supreme Court justices leaving during 2020-2024, and pack the lower courts where they can, like the Republicans are doing now.
4
Ralph Nader has been as toxic to our political system as anyone I can think of outside of Trump. Hubris is the guys middle name. I am sure all the dead soldiers and civilians in Iraq appreciate your running for president. You should have stuck to cars. Gail I just became ill thinking about how the greens and libertarians cost Hillary a win in states that put Trump over the top. I saw an interview with the libertarian candidate whose name I can't remember and the interviewer asked him a question about Aleppo. The guy never heard of Aleppo or maybe didn't know there was a war in Syria. I think even Trump knew that. We do not have a parliamentary system for good or bad so 3rd party candidates should just stand down. Teddy Roosevelt was a popular guy with experience and name recognition, but even he couldn't win as a 3rd party candidate.
25
@amp
the guy who asked back about syria's war - what's a leppo?" - was NM former governor, gary johnson. he just ran again for senate here and took votes away from martin heinrich, our senator. fortunately the GOP candidate was not so well known or popular. but once again, someone with too much time on his hands and money from other forces i.e. johnson attempted to upset the will of the people. because of hubris. BTW johnson was a lousy governor.
8
Voting for a third party candidate in a Republic is akin to not voting. If we had a parliamentary type government, several parties would be on the ballot and every vote would be directed to one of the parties, and if the party getting a majority of the votes didn't win enough seats in parliament to govern by themselves, they would have to seek common ground with the other parties. None of this applies in a Republic.
Voting for a third party candidate gave us George W. Bush and the Iraq War and Donald Trump, the dictator wannbe.
23
This is so so true, given the closeness of elections, third party candidates whoever they are always tend to steal votes away from the liberal candidates who most often tend to be democrats. This results in disaster for the American people, just think of 2000 when George Bush won the election.
Most of the third party candidates live in a dream world and I suspect have huge huge ego's knowing how disruptive they can be. My suggestion to these individuals (you know who you are ) is to run for nonsensical offices like sidewalk inspector of or officer in charge of picking up fall leaves, but please do not run in elections which have such dire consequences if you steal votes from a qualified candidate.
10
Arizona: until we have a proportional system voting for a third party doesn’t make sense. I pinched my nostrils and voted for Hillary — twice — because I was convinced (I still am convinced) that Bernie Sanders would get trounced (no matter whom the Republicans nominated). Hillary, might have won Michigan had she deigned to campaign in Detroit. Ralph Nader is “OK” with not having voted for Trump or Hillary? "You can’t fight city hall” because most of the time the people who work there are too arrogant (or not intelligent enough) to admit they were wrong. So, Ralph, were you wrong?
The Maine/Australia system. We assume that Trump's base, most of home live in “fly-over states,” will understand? Maybe Jon Taffer, with his characteristic subtlety, deft understatement, and adroit use of nuance, should hold some town halls and explain. Or perhaps three Constitutional amendments: one that valorizes D.C. and Puerto Rico, another (one person one vote) that throws out the electoral college and institutes popular vote. Third, since the Civil War was fought and won over the issue of states’ rights, that does not guarantee Senate representation to States with a lesser population that the East Village.
Florida, the home of the “hanging chad” that brought us "W." and unending war: I don’t supposed Congress, especially those Republicans who are so interested in fraud, could mandate a system such as Connecticut’s, a bubble sheet that gets run through a computer.
9
If we all had the Oregon voting system where every registered voter recieves a ballot in the mail, third party votes would not be as much of a factor, because as participation increases the will of the majority does as well.
The picture of Jill Stein sitting with Putin tells us what a lot of third party candidates is really about.
16
@rich
Just want to underline "picture of Jill Stein sitting with Putin." Maybe we need to throw in some campaign messages against 3rd party candidates, stressing that when you vote for one you are voting for the candidate you want the least. Do the math!
3
Agree absolutely. Where is the critical thinking? Long term effects? Those who could not distinguish brilliance and experience over bombast and crudeness, should be required to take a values clarification class.
7
You're trying to scare me into voting for your guy because Trump, you say, is worse. The fact that you are even putting me in such a position speaks volumes about you. YOU, my friend, are skipping down the path toward Trump by having no better argument for your position or candidate than that isn't *quite* as evil as his.
2
@Brent: Voting for the candidate that will get you some of what you want even if it's not all of what you want, instead of someone who will give you all of what you want if elected, but who has no chance of getting elected (Jill Stein for president?), is the best choice. Better than enabling the one who will destroy what you value in the current situation by throwing your vote away on someone you can be certain will not be elected. That's not trying to scare you: It's trying to talk some sense into you. But I guess die-hard Stein, Johnson, Nader, Green, etc., supporters are just as hard to convince as die-hard Trump supporters. I am not mentioning Bernie Sanders here, because most Hillary voters would have voted for him if he'd become the candidate, except perhaps the moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats who might have voted for Hillary but not for Bernie.
3
@Brent
What?
Ralph Nader: selfish, selfish man. He couldn't have governed the country appropriately in any case, but then, neither can the present incumbent.
12
@mignon - To be fair, Nader never could have known that he would swing the election to Bush, any more than the designers of the butterfly ballot that led so many elderly Jews to vote for Pat Buchanan did. I do not, however, forgive Nader' lack of remorse.
4
Third party votes are nothing more than a ”- see I voted comment.”. Vote to win not to get a participation sticker.
5
There's a lot of finger pointing at Ralph Nader as the proverbial spoiler, but what about Ross Perot? I don't care if fivethirtyeight said he wasn't the reason Clinton won in '92. My anecdotal evidence from conversing with scores of voters in a public place revealed that ALL would have voted for Bush without Perot on the ballot.
So third parties both giveth & taketh away. In other words, a push. So, no blame.
3
Gail is right about the all-around weirdness of Florida. As a Floridian, I believe its biggest electoral issue is that it is several different states rolled into one.
South Florida is a combination of NYC, Cuba and South America. Orlando and the center of the state used to be cattle and agriculture, but that has shrunken to make way for Disney, tourism and malls. Tallahassee west to the Panhandle is like Alabama and Western Georgia--the traditional south. The east coast--Boca Raton up through Palm Coast--is full of retirees, tourism and the space and aeronautics industry. The southwest coast of Florida--Tampa, St. Pete, Sarasota--is business and family-oriented but also has a lot of retirees plus a little weirdness (it is the southeast home of the porn industry).
Perhaps the most interesting part of Florida, electorally, is Northeast Florida, which includes Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra and the beaches, and Gainesville, home of the University of Florida. It had been conservative like southeast Georgia, but became purple in the 2016 election and blue in 2018 even though it has a strong military presence, with two naval bases. Jacksonville has changed a lot due to transplants from elsewhere and a growing minority community.
In my view Florida will be reliably blue within eight years, and maybe sooner. In fact, assuming they won, I wouldn't be surprised if DeSantis and Scott are one-term wonders, especially if they both continue being Trump lap dogs.
2
@Jack Sonville -- wow, as it happens I went to Ponte Vedra and Gainesville last spring. They are as polar opposites as one can imagine.
Your columns can, along with a strong dose of caffeine, help me get up and out in the morning. Laughter is great medicine. You will note that our Cantanker-in-Chief has no obvious sense of humor. Sure, he occasionally smiles, but his fear of failure and obsession over slights, humiliation and strong women leave him immune to irony. He is indeed a very sad person to be pitied, if he were not our oh so powerful president.
4
The Second Choice idea sounds great, but we have to careful what we wish for....I think there are Libertarian candidates in places who mostly syphon off GOP votes, and we love those guys (they are always guys).
Just as I am sticking with the electoral college, which will SOME day deliver all of Texas to a democrat who gets 1 more vote than Ted Cruz. Or when older Cubans finally realize the GOP is aWhite Nationalist party, and then Florida finally comes over from the dark side. With the votes of the 4 most populous states, Democrats would start each election with a big leg up...and the NRA will finally get that cold, dead hand it's been looking for...
4
Voting for third party candidates may be cathartic and may even be grounded in principle. But voting for such candidates ends up being a phyrric victory, with America being the loser.
On the other hand, there is more than ample reason to suggest that the two major political parties in this country have outlived their usefulness, and are sorely compromised.
There are no easy solutions, but wasting one’s vote on candidates who have no chance of winning isn’t one of them, particularly when it becomes counterproductive.
7
I was worried in this past election that the Independent candidate for governor was going to siphon enough votes from Laura Kelly to give us Kobach. Fortunately the saner voices in Kansas prevailed.
8
If not for Perot, the Democrats would have not elected Clinton. You see, Ms. Collins, we forget when third parties help one's own. I voted for Perot and I stand by it even though it elected Clinton. Why? Because he was right. He predicted precisely what has come to pass amongst our working classes. How did Clinton repay his Democratic base? He pushed hard to get NAFTA through Congress.
2
@dudley thompson That Clinton needed Perot to split the vote in order to win has been analyzed and it’s simply not so.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-ross-perot-myth/
2
How do I recognize how bad things really are right now? Gail Collins hasn't written a really good joke in weeks. I will know things are looking up when she makes me laugh again.
4
Maine's preference vote elimination system sound like a good approach but only for a relatively small population state. NY or CA would run in to heavy costs or am I simply reading this wrong?
On the other hand, any steps that would help to streamline the voting process would be welcomed, I am sure.
@Cone
I think you're reading it wrong, because it would the vote shift would only take place when there's not a majority (+50%) vote. It seems like a fairly straightforward computer tabulation that would be less expensive than a recount.
5
@Cone -- there's no/negligible extra cost to preference voting and indeed it is much cheaper than a run-off election ... with a few caveats:
* biggest problem with it is how the voter marks preference order on a ballot so that a machine reader can read it. Associated with this is more opportunity for voters to get confused or make errors.
*one problem is what to do with votes/voters who either hold more than one candidate as being of equal preference, or do not indicate a preference order for all candidates. There are "simple" ways to handle this, but they may confuse voters who do not take the time to understand what the rules are for these cases.
* it can make hand-counting ballots considerably more expensive and time-consuming, depending on the circumstances and how the counting is done.
If there are few candidates or one candidate was found to have a near majority then the hand recount is no worse or not much worse than for a conventional ballot, provided that it is not deemed necessary to determine the final vote tallies for all the losing candidates.
If however there are many candidates nearly tied with first-choice votes considerably less than a majority, a hand recount can be much more tedious, and there is always the possibility of a tie vote (as there is in a conventional election).
1
The answer is not to scrap third parties. On the contrary, we should have multiple parties. The Republicans and Democrats in Congress have become arrogant and unresponsive to the people because they are complacent. They know that either party will win every election, which emboldens them to pander to only those who voted for them. Case in point: Trump. He's not the de facto President of the United States. He's the President of the Trump base. The more parties we have, the better chance of ending the bold arrogance of Republicans and Democrats who offer no options from their established platforms. For example, who am I supposed to vote for if I'm pro-life, pro Obamacare, pro taxation of the mega-rich, and pro restriction of immigration? It's like purchasing a new car. I want a sun roof but cloth seats. Sorry, the sun roof package comes with leather seats. Time to end the two party domination and give us more options.
6
Great, as usual. And a piece that finally explains an aspect of Watergate—namely that Ben Bradley and every other journalist in town would hit the Sans Souci or Duke’s restaurant for Harvey Wall Bangers every day about noon. Now, with Trump around, maybe its time the 3 martini lunch made a comeback.
1
I feel like if you're going to complain about the absence of good choices, you can honorably do one of two things: 1) run for office yourself or 2) pull yourself together and vote for the lesser of the two evils.
Because if you don't, you might as well have cast your ballot for the eviler of the two evils.
Not voting is making a statement as well - it's just maybe not the statement you THINK you're making.
Some people do not seem to understand that not voting is STILL making a contribution to the ongoing state of affairs. You can't really remove yourself, even if you imagine you're above the fray, and too good for all this mess. You still live in society. Not voting is voting, in effect.
17
A third party--just want to snitch on elections in my neck of the woods-Hudson Valley. In one of the lesser elections, a women covered herself everywhere- she was on the Democrat, Republican and Independent ticket. Individuals often spread themselves over Dem, Green, Libertarian but to put yourself on two opposing major tickets was infuriating.
2
If only my kids (one voted for Stein - in Wisconsin - and one voted for Johnson) would read your column. I have totally failed to instill in them that elections are choices - choices - not a wish for utopia.
25
I will never forgive Ralph Nader. Never.
34
On "the lesser evil." It was Election Day 2016. After voting I took my two Aussie shepherds (sisters from a rescue) to a dog park across the river in northern Kentucky where they can run off the leash in some hilly woods. A woman about my age who was already there struck up a conversation, the usual things about our dogs. Eventually the election came up, and she said rather ruefully that sometimes it was a case of voting for "the lesser of two evils." I agreed, and although neither of us admitted who we'd voted for, I assumed she meant choosing Clinton over Trump. When I woke the following morning at 3:30 am and checked the news, I may have screamed "Nooooh!" at the ceiling or merely dreamed I did, but that's when I wondered if she possibly had a different definition of that concept. And then I thought, what can you do? Put people in jail for having a different definition, one I find clearly wrong? I'd like to, but there you go.
2
Inspiring candidates? It's hardly that. Over 50 percent of millenials don't know who Mueller is. Unfortunately we have low info voters.
4
Avenatti for Speaker of the House?
Let's play to win.
It is by the rules.
1
That's why we still vote for the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans.
You are so right, But I might really have trouble not voting for the puppy party
10
I must admit that I voted against Hillary Clinton and for Donald Trump. I anguished over it for weeks. I flipped flopped between not voting for president at all and voting Green Party. Finally, I decided that Trump was a buffoon who the party, led by McConnell and Ryan --- the real threat to democracy --- would put on a leash. Who knew it would be the other way around.
My reasoning was sound. As a Sanders supporter I saw the immoral and, I should add, though none dared offend the Clintons, illegal activities by her supporters. Then, I watched the Clintons try to quietly conduct rich donors to their office at the convention --- we were watching --- and so was Robert Reich. He commented on it during the convention. Then, there was the treatment of the progressives by the establishment democrats spearheaded by Hillary. Add to that the special treatment she got for doing what I saw others do time for when serving in the military. I couldn't support that. No, I don't regret my choice.
In this time, the democratic party has learned. It is stronger now. You cannot abandon the left. We are the tonic that will drive the party to the White House in 2020.
1
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. After Nader voters helped send W to the White House, voting for third party candidates is lunacy. When will these people wake up?
27
"In the end, Wilentz said, people who vote for a third party often wind up helping the candidate they’d least like to see win." Doesn't that typify America!
"I don't like you" + "so I'll vote for a third party candidate" =s Trump. "I guess I showed you!"
What's wrong with this picture?
7
So true. I think that many people not only voted for Stein because they disliked both candidates but that some of them voted for Trump because they were convinced (as was he) that he could never win. If Sanders had been the candidate instead of Hillary, we would not have Trump.
Cue to the chorus: "She won more votes." Doesn't matter now. "They would have called Sanders a socialist!" Oh, and that would somehow be worse than "Lock her up!"? Get a grip. The GOP will trash ANY Democrat standing in their way. Remember Willy Horton or Swift Boat?
6
In 2000 Ralph Nader did more harm to the country than he had done good during his whole career previously. I wish he had never been born.
25
Absolutely spot on, Gail.
The lesser of two evils is, by definition, less evil than the alternative. I am sick to death of the ideological purists on the left delivering election after election into the hands of the enemy because Hillary, for instance, wasn't tough enough on Wall Street.
How'd that work out for us? How's Wall Street doing now?
8
Ah, Gail, but it does happen in New York. You just have to look upstate to 27th Congressional District. If the Reform Party candidate had not received 5,773 votes, the Democratic Party candidate, Nate McMurray, would have rescued us from Chris Collins, a swamp inhabitant who supports the great swamp drainer-in-chief.
14
I recalll reading that some folks felt that a "shock to the system" such as Trump as President (rather than a continuation of the country being run by people that might actually be qualified to do the job with compassion and a sense of American values), would be a good wake up call for America yada yada.
Nader gave us Bush and the wars, and the crash of 2008, and Green gave us Trump. Yea, we got your outlier positions and hope all those 'protest votes' feel good but ya know, we are NOT better off for it (and I am indeed a staunch progressive).
Just when does the big shock: the big progressive "woke" moment happen? Meanwhile America becomes known as the nationalistic and xenophobic country that takes immigrant children away from their parents to put them in "camps" (just like summer camp I promise!) while deporting their parents. Oh and the courts are being packed with hard core right wing conservative white male mysoginist Christian fundamentalist Judges (ok maybe that was a bit exaggerated.... but not much!)
Wanna take a stance and make a big comment on American values & politics? Write a letter to the editor. Don't run as a 'protest vote' candidate-it has done much more harm than good. Allowing the lesser of two evils for the sake of a 'wake up' or protest vote gave us both Bush and Trump. Nice going and thanks a LOT.
8
We must find a way to help people overcome both their ignorance and their inability to read or watch the news. There is a plentitude of big city newspapers, national TV news, magazines and often, small town news services that are honest and credible sources of news, real facts, and criticism. Good information is easily available; stupid people refuse to take advantage of it. I give them a D- in overall reading and critical thinking.
5
Please, please New York Times please hit this issue hard in 2020. Please display theoretical results BEFORE the election AS IF third party candidates would win the same percentages once again as they did in 2016, thereby subverting the vote for, usually, the Democratic candidate. I, for one, looked at those numbers and realized that Hillary would've won if there was no third party candidate! We can not repeat this nightmare.
8
At least at the PresidentiaL level they need to make these 3rd party runs harder. Remember that Ralph Nadar gave us George Bush and 20 years of the Iraqi war!
5
@Pat
Bingo! One could even make the case that if Al Gore had been President, 9/11 might not have happened. Gore would likely have read his presidential briefing about Al Qaeda being determined to hit the U.S. And he would have noticed Richard Clarke, the National Coordinator for Security, running around with his hair on fire.
Instead Nader gave us George Bush, & our whole world changed.
6
In Europe the Democrats would be conservatives while the Republicans are neofascists.
Bernie Sanders, the radical egalitarian choice, is a mild European social democrat.
American unions are dead, the left non -existent, and the system offers a choice between plutocracy and feudalism.
With respect, Gail is nuts. The U.S. needs a rainbow of parties.
2
Thank you Gail, for expressing so politely my frustration with these overly precious, smug third Party Voters. That absolutely leads to Trump, or even worse. I would love to explain my version of worse, but lack of space and the comment moderators Rule. Let’s just say the words Pence and Christian Taliban are involved.
Guess what, Kids : It’s really NOT all about you. Hopefully, you’ll grow out of it, or just grow up. I’m voting, working and donating for the future of my Daughter and two Granddaughters. Put down the Facebook, and connect with the real World. Eventually, you get what you vote for. Or what you allow by not Voting, or throwing away your Vote.
Seriously.
13
The minority of voters that occupy the predominantly rural states determine who will occupy the White House, and with the continuing migration towards urban areas that minority will gain even more influence. George Bush won after losing the popular vote by around one-half million and Donald Trump won after losing the popular vote by around three million. As the trend towards urbanization continues, it is reasonable to predict that candidates who win the presidency may lose the popular vote by even greater margins. While it is true that third-party candidates, gerrymandering and voter suppression have a significant influence on the outcome of the election, the primary reason that the Democratic Party candidate lost is because the Republicans were much more successful in courting rural voters.
There is no question that the policy objectives of the Democratic Party are more favorable to middle and lower income families than those of the Republican Party. However, that fact alone does not appear to be sufficient to sway rural voters. Without abandoning their role as the party of social consciousness, the Democratic Party needs to reach out to rural voters and reclaim their rightful place as the worker’s party. This will require an intense, sustained effort over the next two years. If the Democrats are not successful in achieving that objective, Donald Trump will certainly win re-election in 2020.
4
Nicely done, Gail, but Jill Stein's 51,463 votes in Michigan were only part of the 2016 story. 82,000+ Michigan voters showed up in 2016 to cast votes in down-ballot races but skipped casting a vote for President. Thank goodness those people returned to their senses this year to elect Democrats to Governor, AG, Secretary of State, return Stabenow to Senate, and to flip 2 House seats, but, alas - they left both houses of the state legislature controlled by Republicans. More work to be done here in Michigan on the lesser of two evils, and it has to happen all the way down the ballot to county commissioners and township officials.
3
In 1912
Woodrow Wilson Dem pop vote 6,293,152 ev 435
William H. Taft Rep pop vote 3,483,922 ev 8
T. Roosevelt 3rd pop vote 4,119,207 ev 88
A recent Freakonomics podcast, "America's Hidden Duopoly", suggests that the lack of main stream candidates is driven by the lack of competition due to a duopoly in the USA political industry. This situation is maintained by the rules put in place by the duopoly (for example, the primary system), thereby ensuring that third party candidates represent a wasted vote. One of the suggestions to resolve this is the Maine ranked ballot.
3
Third parties may be an unfortunate way to show displeasure with major party candidates, but...at least they voted. Yes HRC lost Michigan by more than the number of votes for Candidate Other, but there is no certainty that they would have voted at all without Candidate Other on the ballot. Blame the Republicans and Democrats for not being able to find solid candidates who run positive campaigns. Don’t blame the third party candidates or their voters. When barely more than 60% of eligible voters vote, THATS the problem.
7
@Josh Conescu The problem is that people do silly stupid, things. The Bernie or Bust people helped put Trump in the WH. Who hold's views closer to Bernie, Trump or Clinton? It's a binary choice, pick the of teh two. A protest vote means you are behaving like a child who can't have a cookie. The real problem is that they still won't admit it.
2
Talk about hitting the proverbial nail on the head, thanks Gail for nicely explaining the effects of third party voting. For years I've wondered why people throw their votes away.
16
"In the end, Wilentz said, people who vote for a third party often wind up helping the candidate they’d least like to see win."
That's true, but it's also democracy in motion. The purpose of an election is to hear what voters want. People voting tactically for their second choice is what gives us an adversarial, two-party system.
1
@Tansu Otunbayeva
The purpose of an election is to choose who will have authority to create and execute laws. Casting a vote is making use of a tiny piece of pure undiluted power power, not a public opinion poll.
Hearing what voters want can be expressed through exercise of First Amendment rights.
If you don't believe that, if you are too pure to vote for the least bad candidate, you could wind up with someone like the current president. You got heard, all right, as this guy undermines democracy.
Or maybe you just don't like the two-party system. In Belgium there are lots of parties. You vote for your party and they are the ones who make compromises and form a ruling coalition.
But you cannot stay pure and run a democracy -- there are too many points of view on the way to reaching decisions.
6
@david in brussels I like proportional representation. I like that smaller parties make compromises and negotiate governance. It's a finer-grained solution than systems that favor just two parties, when there are many shades of opinion.
After countless analyses of the 2016 election, thank you for summing it up more accurately in one short paragraph than anything else I've read. What does it say about our state of affairs when comedy is, far and away, the best source for insight? Well, I guess it beats tragedy.
4
The Australian system often results in even more parties listed on the ballot. Major parties make deals with minor ones to get their adherents to put their party high on the ballot and their opponents last. This tends to exacerbate rather than solve the minority party issue, but it sure does lengthen the counting period. It is not unusual to wait a week in some close contests to see who won.
1
@David Cray
Sir: Every vote must be counted.
And recounted if necessary.
Every single one.
If the Australian system takes a week so be it.
1
Oh thank you Gail. All third party voters should pin this sentence on their wall:
" In the end, people who vote for a third party often wind up helping the candidate they’d least like to see win."
As for the Bernie supporters who said Hillary had to EARN their vote, she did, by winning the nomination and being far far superior to Trump.
Yes, I know many of them voted for Hillary in the end, and I thank them for being grown-ups.
Please, third party voters, please don't subject us to another 4 years of Trump. You said Hillary voters needed to learn a lesson, you were wrong. I hope you've learned yours.
29
@klm
But a good number of them either voted for Trump or stayed home, even if they aren't going to admit it.
1
@DW
I spent way too much time online arguing with third party voters and others "But if Trump wins, what about the Supreme Court and abortion? We can't risk it!"
My arguments failed. God, election night was awful.
3
LESSER OF 2 EVILS has given us a huge deficit, fear of a non existent hoard of criminals attacking our southern border, a bad reputation throughout the world, mishandled natural disasters , an army poised to defend the non existent while California burns. while Flint still drinks tainted water. etc. 2 more months to resist.
7
That some folks are still insisting that voting for 3rd parties makes sense is mindboggling. In 2000, Nader delivered Geroge W. Bush, Iraq, Alito, Roberts and tax cuts for billionaires. In 2016, Stein voters were critical in delivering the current catastophe we are barely surviving as a nation, in addition to Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Now people are saying they'd do it again??
It looks like Sinema will pull through in Arizona, but imagine the very real possibility that her seat could have decided the Senate majority and thus the next Supreme Court justice..and still 40,000+ people voted for the Green candidate with zero chance of winning, after what we just went through with Trump, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Mitch McConnell, etc.....?
Please, please think before you waste your vote in 2020 - every Senate seat is precious - and to play games with the White House after 2016 is unconscionable.
59
I want to vote to end our current wars of choice and not start any new ones. How do I do that?
11
@Steve Bruns
Why would you think you can get what you want?
Almost no one else does.
Historically, Democrats had a nasty habit of coddling progressives pre-election and marginalizing them post election. Basically, thanks for your vote now get lost. I thought this particularly true under Bill Clinton. The dissatisfaction with this Lucy pulls the football gambit led more progressives to start voting third party. The Democratic Party brought this on themselves. When they pre anointed Hillary, who had every intention of playing the same game, the dye of her demise was cast. I did vote for Hillary, but to blame those who voted third party denies the history of Democratic double dealing.
5
as opposed to the Republicans who shout tax cuts and deficit reduction only to deliver a deficit increase and tax cuts for the wealthy.
3
Most folks know the difference between the ideal and the real, but when you're a little guy or gal, situated somewhere on the bell curve of a 325 million person nation, it's easy to deceive oneself into thinking that you really count.
The problem is, that they do count, but not the way they want.
In Dallas, it's easy for a highly educated techie to think the elections are close. One doesn't see the Cowboy hats and, shotguns racked up in the pickup trucks, lined up outside the voting sites. They forget about the state's Northwest quadrant.
7
Somebody said that if FL had a race between eating ice cream and getting kicked in the head, it would be 50.5 - 49.5.
9
@gVOR08
Thank you for the laugh! I needed it.
This column brings into sharp focus the reason why we need strong liberal candidates and not worry about the unicorns, aka "swing voters". You know darn well Bernie would have captured the Green Party voters. Not a single person who voted for Hillary is going to vote for Trump in 2020, and EVERY one of those Hillary voters will vote for the Democratic candidate in the next cycle. We need the Democratic ticket to inspire the Greens and the minorities to turn out and that is what will put us over the top. Let's stop wringing our hands over why working class whites vote for Trump. We don't need them.
5
Otto Schily was a founding member of the German Green Party and switched to the Social Democratic Party in 1989. He brought green positions into the SPD. Might this be a viable option for people like Nadar or Stein?
4
not even a little mention of Russia? it's close to certain that a lot of voters' negative opinions come from fake news (the real kind), i.e. voted for Trump because 'the Pope endorsed him' or didn't vote for Hillary because of her alleged nefarious (and fictional) deeds.
1
Gail can only do so much, the rest is for us
1
The moral of the story is: the Democrats shouldn't force an uninspiring candidate on their base, or the wider voting public
4
@Tom Sagebut you then consider “him” inspiring? He’s not, he is ruining our country....I’d take uninspiring any day.
2
There would be no problem with third party voters if most people bothered to vote. By not voting in 2016 a third of the population tacitly voted for Trump. Stein's supporters are really very small potatoes compared to the mob who just don't care at all.
11
@Allan Except they made the difference that let Trump get elected. And allowed the environmental and climate change catastrophes we now face. It's up to the voters to decide the elections not the political parties.
5
I understand Ms Collins rant, and it is vaild given the sorry state of our nation's politics. Which, if one actually thinks about it, speaks volumes about the sorry state of the American citizen.
We have a great system, a great Constitution (save the Electoral College). It's the people, the citizens, that are the problem, regardless of their party or their lack of one.
MB
8
Could we change the Electoral College to the following:
a) If you win the Congressional District then you win that
Electoral College Vote.
b) If you win the State then you win the two
Senatorial Electoral Votes.
Could the New York Times run the numbers on all the Presidential Elections the since 2000
and let us know how the modified
Electoral Vote would have turned out ?
7
I think the heat in Florida affects the brains of the voters, which is why they make such weird choices. If there was a question on the ballot asking "Which would you rather receive, a punch in the face or an ice cream cone," the vote would still be 50-50.
6
Everyone has the solution. We should be more like [insert your favorite country]. Yet none of these other countries' forms of government or voting systems come even close to being in existence, continuously, for well over 200 years. And none of these other countries have deal with the size and diversity that we have. Be careful what you whish for.
2
"people who vote for a third party often wind up helping the candidate they’d least like to see win" That may be the smart thing ever said about people who vote for candidates who can not, will not win (although I would would remove 'often' and replace it with 'always'). Protest votes are for whinny, shelf-indulgent children.
9
This is basic misunderstand of the way elections work in this republic—i.e. not a parliamentary system. We have primaries and parties which, though not specified in the Constitution, are the winnowing process for deleting truly bad choices. You have to participate though. Any talk of “a pox on both of them” is either lazy or very misinformed. If this were a parliamentary system I can envision the same people complaining that they don’t get to directly vote for the PM. On the flip side, in 2016 the GOP harvested a 30-year investment in vilifying the Clintons.
5
people please understand that blaming third party candidates is a way to retain the two-party system. voting is not a horse race, we are not supposed to vote for whom we think can win, but instead, we are supposed to vote for the candidate who best represents our political views. you don't get a prize for picking the winner. the people responsible for these close-loss races are the people who never bothered to vote at all. why do we not see attacks on them, the way we so often see third-party voters attacked? at least we got out there and voted, unlike so many others. don't be fooled by two-party lackeys like this author.
1
@douglas
"we are supposed to vote for the candidate who best represents our political views."
No, no, no. Voting is about selecting candidates who will occupy the White House, or the Senate seats, or the House seats, the Governor's seats, the State Legislature's seats, County , Municipal seats. Despite what Bill Clinton said about elections being about "you," they're not. They're about determining who will push or pull the levers of power. Third party votes don't ever have a chance to get their hands on those levers.
5
@douglas
It just amazes me that some people can't or won't look squarely at reality. You have this completely backwards. YES, we are supposed to vote for the person we think can win, when we have examined the alternatives and concluded which ones have a chance of ACTUALLY occupying the seats of power. For some of us this is about reality. Fact, in the voting booth: Either HiIlary Clinton or Donald Trump was going to be president. It was one or the other.
In fact you DO get a prize for picking the winner. Just ask the people who voted for Trump if you don't believe me! Your philosophy is very pretty but Donald Trump is president, gosh how did that happen.
3
@douglas "....vote for ....who best represents our political views." Spoken with all the naivete and idealism of a third grade civics classroom. If the person who best represents your political views has no chance of winning your vote doesn't count and you may as well have voted for 'the other'.
2
I vote for the lesser evil, but there are two problems with this column. First, it takes all the moral pressure off the two main parties and places it on the voter. The Democrat has no obligation to be good, only to be less bad than the Republican, which is a very low bar in nearly all cases. I end up voting for the Democrat because of the lesser evil logic, but that same logic allows for really mediocre or bad candidates and only blames the voter if the mediocrity loses.
Secondly, the argument would be more compelling if it came from people who criticize the evil that the lesser evil people are responsible for. This rarely happens. In fact, the logic ends up being applied even with regards to mere criticism. People avoid any harsh criticism of a Democrat because it might help Republicans if people are driven by disgust to vote third party.
Take Yemen. Obama gave the green light to that abomination, and it was obviously going to be a war crime right from the start. How many liberal pundits have been writing about it since 2015? At this paper, probably none with the possible exception of Kristof—I don’t know when he started. Kristof isn’t always right, in my opinion, but he has integrity and has earned the right to lecture about lesser evil voting if he chooses.
3
At the end of the day, Gail is like many liberals who want third parties blocked from appearing on general election ballots like CA and LA do by use of a jungle primary. Of course that works both ways - Libertarians and small conservative parties would no longer siphon votes from Republicans. In general, forcing people to only vote for two parties maintains the very monopoly on power that so many on the left and right complain about - that seems about as undemocratic as you can get.
2
@Chris A parliamentary system allows minor parties to have an actual impact. Our system doesn't.
4
@Chris
At the end of the day, people like you gave us Trump.
4
One of the two major parties is always liberal and the other conservative. The only consistent difference between the two is that the conservative party usually stands for greed and hatred.
Regardless what a third party stands for, a vote for it is a vote for the party you like the least.
7
Imagine a world without Ralph Nader and Jill Stein:
1. Would still be in the Paris Accord and strengthening it.
2. Citizen's United (unlimited billionaire money) would a) NEVER have happened in the case of Gore winning (2000) and b) would be on the way out in the case of Clinton winning (2016)
3. Afghanistan and Iraq invasions most certainly would not have happened (hundreds of thousands dead, millions of lives ruined, current immigration issues throughout the Middle East and hundreds of billions of dollars not wasted). Perhaps Al Gore would have been paying attention in August 2000 and 9/11 prevented!
4. EPA run by someone in favor of protecting clean water, clean air, fellow humans and other species.
5. Sensible gun laws and the lives saved as a result
6. Much smaller deficits as billionaires paid their fair share of taxes!
7. Probably something more akin the universal healthcare in the United States.
8. Alternative energy solutions on the horizon (see Point 1). Less fracking. Etc., etc....
We could go on and on and on....
If you care about the Earth, about people, about other species. I guess if you care about anything at all really, view the so called "Green Party" with more than a little suspicion.
(What was Jill Stein doing at Vladimir Putin's dinner table in the fall of 2015?)
5.
16
Donald Trump has one thing he can boast about with 100% truth—and we know how much he likes to boast—: Trump can claim personal responsibility for more women being elected to political office across the United States than ever before in history; 100 in Congress alone, not to mention state and city government. That's no lie, Donald.
8
What is it about Florida that they can never getting the voting system right? To make matters worse Rick Scott, the man in charge of this mess for the last eight year, is then sent to Congress.
5
If third parties are truly the third rail of politics (and perhaps narcissists), then perhaps someone could convince our current POTUS to formally rename the formerly named Republican Party the Trump Party, let the Grand Old Party remain its original self with its original members, then let the totally Trump Family Party become a for profit, tax free, global corporation featuring hotels, casinos, merchandise and beauty contests.
Now there's a surefire win, win, win proposition.
Thou shan't have to rant anymore.
Addicted to instant gratification, Americans demand the result NOW! As voters aged, they voted in greater numbers by absentee ballot. Their votes are counted like an afterthought and are undervalued. Likewise provisional ballots. Likewise overseas (military) ballots. These are just more stinks rising from American "democracy."
2
The lesser of two evils is less evil.
2
The lesser of two evils is, well, less evil. But don't try telling that to the privileged purists who refuse to vote for an imperfect candidate even though it would move the needle in the right direction. No, their vote is too precious. Of course, these people are often insulated from the consequences of their decision, so what do they care if people of color, immigrants,
LGBT folks, and others take it on the chin.
5
Yes indeed, Gail. What was worse in 2016? Voting for Jill Stein or not voting at all? A pox on all of the above! We owe the decline of democracy, civilisation itself and the further destruction of our planet to the "Greens"! There can be no greater pathetic irony.
But I would love the idea of 3rd or 4th party candidates if ranked voting choice were in place. They actually bring important ideas to the table that the front runners might like to talk about but don't - for fear of alienating some piece of the carefully crafted knitting together of a constituency. Their handlers control their narratives.
Why would we want to adopt a system that has worked well in another democracy?. That wouldn't be 'Murican. Australia leads us in retirement planning, health care and apparently election efficiency. Not bad for a country founded by a bunch of criminals harvested off the streets of London. We should look around the world. There are lots of "unAmerican" and "unexceptional" good ideas we could benefit from.
1
Here in Australia if no candidate gets 50% plus one our preferential system makes sure that the least disliked person is elected.. it works ok..
4
Of you voted for Stein, you voted for Trump. If you wrote in a candidate not on the ballot, you voted for Trump. If you stayed home disgusted with the choices, you voted for Trump. Don't dress it up, don't try to justify it, you voted for Trump. There were 2 Candidates, if you didn't vote for one, you voted for the other.
9
Nothing to worry about- all of the 'ok' felons will be able to vote democratic next time around, which should sort everything out.
In the meantime if our parties would stop supporting evil candidates (I lean democratic and couldn't bring myself to vote for Hillary, but in a super blue state that hardly matters), we wouldn't have this conundrum. I guess a certain level of evil is required along with the level of narcissism required for anyone to think they should be running the country...
1
Yet a number of voters felt it was a good plan to go for other options — like a 34-year-old independent with a campaign war chest of $7,000 who nevertheless got 14,474 votes.
-------------
Oh, sweet goodness, Gail!
Surely you are not advocating for LESS choice and for voters to only choose between wealthy candidates from the two established political parties? That's not how you win, girl!
The new women of the new generations need to teach you Boomer women: at some point, you have to accept the rules of the game you are playing, whether it be basketball or the Electoral College. You don't get to whine, for the rest of time, about how you are disadvantaged under the current rules and they need to be changed...
Want to win, women? Don't work to limit the choices on my ballot. Tell voters why they should choose you over the other well-funded person from the other party, or the $7,000 funded candidate from the no-name party. If you can't convince me why to vote for you, you don't deserve to get my vote by eliminating all other options... That's kind of how we got into this mismatched mess in the first place.
Finally, please start thinking about tomorrow. Nancy Pelosi and Ruth Ginsburg are nice and intelligent ladies. But their prime work years are well past. Their wisdom comes from days of old, and times indeed have changed -- for workers, for women, for wealth.
Listen to the educated, younger workers who are paying into this corrupt system. Change comes from them.
1
@Midway
When you can name a young person with half the savvy and skill at herding cats as Nancy Pelosi, by all means speak up. Pelosi got the Affordable Care Act passed. To lose her would make the Republicans do a happy dance.
As for Ginsburg, we're privileged to have her on the Court as long as she can serve. She's smarter and has more integrity than any of the other Justices.
5
Our election process seems a Rube Goldberg contraption that some of the rest of the world, Australia being the acknowledged example, watch in gaping amazement all the while thinking:
"All that sound, jeezus will you look'it all that fury?! All that contrived drama and innuendo! That thing actually works at all!? It's a wonder it doesn't explode into fragments when in operation!"
And it's a wonder any American citizen bothers to vote at all. There has to be a better way to select leaders in this country don't'cha think?
American's have explore the solar system! We investigate the Sun with our marvelous machines. We have the power of the Gods by the standards of our ancestors. But we still have this clunky system?
What was good in the 18th Century is used, abused and thoroughly worn out, like a mottled throw rug, in the 21st. Me thinks it's time we change it.
John~
American Net'Zen
2
Yes Gail, there are worse things than voting for the lesser of two evils. You might have mentioned that sometime around October 2016. But snarky commentary about the one who was the lesser of two evils was such gratuitous fun!
@KAN Wasn't that Madsen Dowd?
1
Here in Maine the result of the voting for our 2nd District Congressman is still up in the air thanks to 2 Vanity candidates that between them have about 22,000 votes. Neither is a member of any party. The total for the D & R candidates is about 260,000.
Thanks or no thanks, depending upon you view of Rank Choice Voting, the Democrat may win. We'll know sometime next week.
Both the Vanity candidates were on the ballot as "U" (undecided? uniformed? undeclared?) and had as much chance of winning the Congressional set as Romney's dog Seamus. Vanity.
4
I totally agree one should never vote for a person who has 0 chance of winning ,if a person does not like either candidate they should not vote ,because they are helping the person win which they do not like
Ralph Nader may have handed the 2000 Election to G.W. Bush in Florida, Gail. What's past is ash. We have more on our plate today with California's massive wildfires, mass shootings, Trump in France (the literal elephant in the antique shop), Trump's fraudulent unconfirmed A.G. after Sessions, and Florida's insane Midterm Elections recount.
Floridians have been rudely done by for too long by the Republican Party, especially today when our Yuge Orange Prez from Palm Beach -- who stumped for the losing Senator and Governor (Scott and DeSantis) of the Sunshine State --
is running amok in France. We are sick to death about being stressed every day in this state.
3
Ponce de Leon, old school. I like it.
1
"reasons way too complicated to discuss over a weekend."
You stated the solution in the first paragraph
Plan "parties that involve sitting around and drinking until January."
But what are they going to do in Arizona? Have a run-off election?
And the Republican Party in Maine are terrified of ranked choice voting and are working hard to shoot it down.
Well, after all, they ARE Repubs, whose general strategy seems to be to use every possible path to prevent Dems, non-white people, college students, inmates who have served their sentence, etc etc from voting. Or to have their votes be counted. Two words: Brian Kemp and Kris Kobach.
I wonder what they're so afraid of?
3
Most 'democratic' countries have an independent body or commission, the job of which is to oversee elections.
That body or commission is not partisan. It is not dependent on government, or change in government, for its mandate. Someone running for office could never, ever be the person overseeing the election. (Yes, I'm looking at you Brian Kemp). Someone running for office would never be allowed to purge the voting rolls of thousands of people. (Oh, Brian, you again).
When the person asking for your 'vote' is the person who decides whether you even get to vote, that is not democracy even if it hides behind its skirts.
4
Read about the Maine idea. It makes sense. But this is the USA, where you know what always stands a chance. Corollary, logical ideas tend to get discounted due to the original statement. Those who are bored with blowout elections should move to Florida. No check that, there are enough rubes and ignoramus's there. Maybe Antartica, or the North Pole. Dress warmly and take plenty of cans of sterno and spam.
The evil that is lesser is usually much less disturbing to you than it is to many other people. You might see much of it as even positive. So even if someone decides to vote for it, it takes much more out of them than it does for you.
2
Susan, you are the best!
Wee here at the PTP Party headquarters are sniffing at the results of last weeks elections and are producing a series of fresh policy papers promising our support to the mainstream Democratic candidates in 2020. Bark out the vote.
1
Thank you very much for this column. I am still very angry with Democrats who registered their ennui for Hillary by voting for Jill Stein, with the direct result being the president we now have.
4
For your pop quiz on Florida, you should have added another choice: Cuban Americans who seem to be out of step with most Hispanics and non-Hispanics.
According to Politico ("Poll: Gillum, Nelson winning Florida Hispanics, but Cuban-Americans could keep Florida red"), Cuban Americans think by 60 to 33 percent that the country is on the right track.
They also think favorably of Trump's president’s immigration policies by 50-36 percent.
Imagine that, people who came here as refugees and received all the benefits associated with being refugees, favoring a man who send 15,000 troops to stop refugees, a man who think Mexicans are criminals and rapists and so on.
Only in Florida.
6
It is way too easy to hijack our election process. The Russians (or their lap dogs) just need to fund 3rd party candidates.
1
There are many alternative voting systems. I leave it to you to research. But one thing is clear: Our current "winner takes all" system, in which the winner of 50.01% of the vote gets 100% of the representation, ALWAYS devolves into only two viable parties. Someday this may change, but in the meantime, by what warped logic can someone say they refuse to vote for the "lesser of two evils." All you accomplish is to let someone else chose the greater evil.
6
My understanding of the founding fathers' reasoning behind the structure of Congress was that Senators be given longer terms in order to make that branch less radical, less divided, and to encourage bipartisanship. But that's not happening. Instead we get as much polarization in the Senate as in the House, and the Senate doing radical things like allowing a simple majority to approve a Supreme court justice. So now, each state gets to elect two Senators regardless of population, giving low population states as much power in a radically polarized Senate as high population states. How can this unfairness, this distorted representation, be rectified? This surely is not what the founding fathers intended. I suppose they expected anyone elected to the Senate to espouse a sense of decency, fairness, and moderation and to work with the other side. Now the Supreme Court is tilted right and will affirm whatever laws this minority rule Senate wants to write. At least the Democratic House can slow down this absolutist Republican government. The missing link in our democracy is the lack of bipartisanship in the Senate, the "win at all costs," playing politics like it's a football game, mentality. I blame all sides for playing into this, and the media doesn't help with its polarizing depictions of the electorate. Dark money doesn't help, making anything our government does suspect: whose pulling the strings? There, that's my rant!
10
You can not scold people for voting for whom they like. Why should they to settle for less evil? It is bad for democracy and for the country, when the Government runs by evil, even if it is less evil than alternative, instead of good. Change the system that would allow people to vote by their heart without fear of helping evil. I guess it could be perfect issues for democrats to run on, if they really want democracy to flourish in this country.
1
Rant. What if the limit in the house (435) was removed and the number of representatives was revised so the number of people per elector in the electoral college (# in the House + # of senators) were equalized? At least that would mostly solve the electoral college problem and make the representation of electoral votes per capita consistent across states. Right now, it varies from 189 k to 678k per electoral vote.
6
My mother always split her vote. If she voted for a Republican president all other votes were for Democrats. Why? She had learned (in the '30s) that although a two-party system is essential for democracy there must be checks and balances. So always split the vote so one branch checks the other. Unfortunately, + and - equals 0. It's gratifying that there was a blue wave. It signals a semblance of sanity. But we're still split, chaos will still reign.
5
I voted for John Anderson as well. (Not sure but do not believe he swayed the election.). He was probably the best candidate and not a protest vote. HOWEVER, i’ll Never do that again, and we still have Nader and Stein to thank for propelling our country into a downward spiral from which we may never recover in my lifetime.
16
Maine just used ranked-choice voting (RCV) for the first time, and only for our Congressional races, but it will be used to settle the incredibly close 2nd District race between incumbent Poliquin (R) and challenger Golden (D). The country will now get to see the system in action, and see that it is a beautiful solution. First, every vote matters. Those who voted for the two Independent candidates now play a vital role by their 2nd and 3rd choices. They did not "throw their vote away". This allows guilt-free support for alternative candidates, support that is necessary for the country to hear more voices in the conversation than just two. The winner is forced to realize that whatever views formed the platform of the 3rd party candidate, those views were the first choice of the voters that were needed for their victory. That is a step toward coalition building, a lost art in America.
Australia has had it right for a long time. Maine just showcased it in America for the first time. May it catch on.
37
So we end up with Trump, which is like getting gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. And that gum turns out to be that old Black Jack brand that no one really liked and was discontinued, but is brought back every decade or two to remind us we shouldn't have bought it in the first place.
But back to that gum on your shoe: It's annoying and hard--very hard--to get rid of. Gum will take more than one election cycle to get rid of. Some will scrape and clean until it's gone; some will just keep walking until it wears away; some will get used to the sticking sound of each step. But everyone--at least for a short time--will be careful where they step.
13
My ballot had 24 third-party candidates in state and local races, the places where these candidates and parties should be gaining experience and earning support for their platforms. Yet over 60% of them had no current or substantive information about themselves available to voters, and I make far more effort than most people (sadly) to research all candidates. How are constituents supposed to feel confident about voting for third parties that have not made a serious attempt to build a foundation of experience, support, and outreach? Putting their candidates in nationwide races is symbolic at best and at worst-- as the columnist points out -- can create havoc.
7
I don't see what the harm in 24 candidates. if people don't know candidates they will not vote for them.
1
ME-02 voter here. On my facebook feed this morning, I got a message from the RCCC asking me to express my concerns about protecting my voice; the image was the independent candidate portion of the ballot in the 2nd, Bond and Hoar, but it didn't use the words "Ranked Choice Voting."
So here's my message to RCCC I say: I voted for Golden, Bond, and Hoar. Those were my rankings. I was grateful to have three choices with which to oppose Poliquin personally. It was my way to repudiate* the disturbing administration in Washington of which he is part. From reproductive rights to climate change to voting rights to health care, Poliquin does not represent my goals for Maine.
Protect my voice. I support Ranked Choice Voting, and I hope it spreads to other places.
7
In 1980, I voted for John Anderson and, thereby, helped to elect Ronald Reagan. I was cured of that propensity as a result. But, I've had to refight that battle with my own children, especially in 2016. We really do need a better system.
15
While holding Nader accountable for Gore's loss... which led to Bush and the incompetent and irresponsible war in Iraq... which led to Obama (!)... which led to Clinton's incompetent and irresponsible campaign that has given us...
Trump...
I don't fault Nader or other third party candidates for running, or anyone who votes for them. Third party candidates add depth to our political discussion and are a welcome alternative when both candidates are unacceptable.
I've voted once for a third party candidate and that was for John Anderson in the election that saw Ronald Reagan become President. But I might do it again if Democrats nominate Kirsten Gillebrand or Elizabeth Warren and there is a third party option for Amy Klobuchar or Michael Bloomberg or Evan McMullin.
I'm a hard core moderate and if the Democrats go too far left, or dive too deeply into identity politics, I'm voting for the center, even if it means another 4 years of disaster and disharmony. My hope would be that 4 more years of destruction would burn out the fires of extremism and leave the field open to common sense and cool sensibility.
2
@Mike Marks- Nah. You lost me at the "another 4 years of disaster....." I believe you are saying, "I'm willing to take that risk." Well, it not just your 'risk.' It's the entire country's risk. All of us.
3
"Which led to Obama(!)"? You mean President Barack Obama, the most intelligent, scholarly, compassionate, ethical and moral president of the past 50 years? The one who saved this country, and by extension the world, from a crushing depression which would still have us in its grip? The one who ensured that we still have major automakers in this country, and who actually turned a profit for the American people from their bailout? The one with no indictments in his administration for corruption, malfeasance, or other criminal activity? I hope you don't blame him for "hollowing out the military" as Trump still claims, because that's a straight up lie, like most of his bloviating.
Obama was far from perfect, and he killed way too many people for my liking, including American citizens abroad who were deemed enemy combatants. But he did so much else, including a down payment on a far more equitable and rational health-care system for this country.
The largest negative effect of President Obama was that apparently a segment of working class white people hated blacks more than their own interests decided to install Trump, the most corrupt, incompetent, uneducated, ignorant, abusive liar in chief that we have seen in my lifetime, probably for the past hundred years, possibly for the entire life of this country, God protect us.
But that's not Obama's fault, it's a flaw in the character of the United States.
7
@Clearheaded The exclamation point was meant as a positive! Obama was great in many, many ways (but his coolness and failure to engage in salesmanship is also part of the reason we have Trump.
The Florida game, and I suspect elsewhere where you cannot vote out of party affiliation in the primaries, is registering for the opposing party to jimmy the primaries by supporting the least fit.
This tactic similarly undermines polls.
5
People register for the party they don't support all over the country, this is not peculiar to Florida. I have a friend who lives in California, and my brother who lives in New York state, who did just that in order to jigger primary results in favor of their own candidate, or to vote for a personal friend who happened to be a Democrat.
You know what? Given the outright election fraud that Republicans are practicing in states across the country, I may do that too. I voted the straight Democratic ticket for the first time in my life this month. Maybe it's time to go further and adopt some of the tactics of Republicans. They've done too much damage to this country to worry about adherence to punctilious rules of respect for the opposite party. I think this would fall under what Eric Holder described as the response of "when they go low we kick them". No violence, no law breaking.
2
Gail, you make a valid point ... except, as someone who wrote in Elizabeth Warren in 2016 ... I only did so because I was certain that Illinois would NOT be critical in the election. Had it been a close race, I would have held my nose and voted for Clinton. Thus, if your state is solidly blue or red and you feel confident that your vote really won't make a difference, why not cast it for a third choice?
1
@Ronald Cress
Because you never know in advance if the polls are accurate or not.
How would you have felt if Illinois had gone for Trump?
5
@Ronald Cress- And you have a point also. However, suppose Hillary would have won the popular vote by 15 million or even more? That would have sent a bigger message to this country about the problem with the electoral college and a message to the current administration and a message to our entire citizenship. Bottom line, if you vote third party, or write-in or anything similar, including not voting, you have voted for the winner.
2
In the current Florida Governor’s race, which is close enough to require a mandatory recount, there were four minor-party candidates. The Reform party (Richardson/Argenziano) received in excess of 47,000 votes, which is more than the difference between DeSantis and Gillum. Clearly, Florida faces numerous problems in its election process - voter suppression, ballot design issues, etc., any one of which could (and has) altered the outcome of elections. ALL the improvements described by Gail Collins are sorely needed here.
12
Are third party candidates even covered in this country? Hardly at all. If we have ranked elections, will the media actually have to cover ALL the candidates.
As I recall, during the last election:
a. Only one Democratic primary candidate was covered, while the other was treated to what was virtually a news blackout.
b. The Republican's abomination was in the news 24/7. Every incoherent sentence was recorded for posterity. Even an empty lectern had the camera trained upon it as if it belonged to Lincoln himself.
What is the media's role in promoting fair elections? Part of Nader's so-called obstinate stance has to do with the gross inequality inherent in the present system.
Big money on both sides hold all the cards.
Thank you, Socrates, for pointing out that it is unwise to preach against more competition. Maybe we had to experience the nadir of Trump's presidency to reconsider what we have become and to make some long overdue changes.
35
Blame Ronald Reagan and the doing away with the "fairness rule" in broadcasting, etc.
1
the fact that my cell phone is more reliable, faster, more technologically superior and frankly more traceable than my last electronic vote says a lot about the disaster that voting has become in America. As Republicans whine about recounts and attempt to block them yet again, let's remember that they have had the power to fix this, and deliberately chose not to.
100
My heart and mind are Green, but I'm practical and vote for the best candidates who have a chance to win, almost always Democrats (Note: I live in a small city and recently voted for a Republican for Mayor. He won, and he's a good Mayor). If they have not done so, I would like to see the Democratic Party reach out to the Greens to try and bring them into the fold: the Greens would enrich and strengthen the Democratic Party, as well as bring much needed perspective and balance to the Left.
26
There are indeed problems with our voting systems.The good news is that there are fixes.The one in Maine, ranked choice voting is one- it works there because everyone decides to run as an independent.Our ballots could be much simpler and more foolproof for an accurate count.Every board of elections opts for a system that they prefer.There should be more uniformity across the country and a more voter friendly ballot is a no brainer.There are terrible insoluble problems in the world- a simple ballot, an accurate recount are not among them.It is not rocket science!
17
@Janet Michael Actually, we're about to see if it works in Maine. It was a hard-fought campaign to change to rank-choice. It's being tested for the first time, in a contentious race. Stay tuned.
3
Ms Collings is unaware that Prof Kenneth Arrow won the Nobel Prize for proving that every voting system with more than two choices is logically inconsistent, so there is no variant of counting the votes that produces a good result every time. She also omits that the Best Candidate for President Ever, St Hillary, promised war with Russia. Or maybe she does, but knows that St Hillary would have forced Putin's immediate resignation and allowed her to name a good Russian president like Yeltsin, since he couldn't possibly stand up to her. Not all of us can see this. And her numbers showing the votes for Ms Stein gave Trump the election do not match the actual vote numbers. Other than that, a great column.
1
@Michael
As Arrow said about his THEOREM (For which there is, as yet, NO Proof) "Most systems are not going to work badly all of the time. All I proved is that all can work badly at times."
His shared noble prize was for unrelated work.
Other than that, great post.
1
Other countries with third parties (labour and green) are superior to the US in every way.
@Michael Your statement that Arrow’s theorem shows these systems are “logically inconsistent” is a misinterpretation. The notion that Clinton “promised war with Russia” is simply ridiculous. And, the number of votes Collins reports in Michigan agrees with number given by Wikipedia. So it seems that you are wrong on logic, history, and arithmetic.
3
I vote for:
A) The ghost of Ponce de Leon haunts the polling places.
Great line, Gail Collins. Cheered me up (and reminded me that Ponce de Leon once existed, which was made known to me in fifth grade -- a few years back). I hadn't given him a thought in decades. Now I have to look him in Wiki (if only I had Wiki in 5th grade!).
6
"Even if both candidates in a major election seem terrible, deep in your heart you know one is more terrible than the other."
How dreary. We have to vote for the least worst option. With a system like this, it's no wonder so many ignore or avoid the whole thing. If the world's leading democracy is reduced to picking A or B, (and only A or B are realistic choices) when neither is particularly appealing, then we are in for some terrible years.
9
@Nullius
Bill Clinton once said to the voters: ".... this election is about you.." No Bill, it's not about "you" and your "personal values." It's about who occupies the Oval Office or who is Governor of a State, or who is going to be voting in the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, or in a State Legislature. We will be better off if people realize this when they go to vote.
1
@Nullius, life is full of compromises.
“You can’t always get what you want / But if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”
3
In for some terrible years? When hasn't it been terrible for somebody? If you're not getting lynched, you're getting shot, if you're lucky enough to survive, you're getting foreclosed or evicted or incarcerated. Or, best of all, taxed into poverty or homelessness.
1
As an Australian, the US electoral system astonishes and appalls me. We have an independent electoral commission that ensures electorates are fairly drawn and manages the actual electoral process (no gerrymanders, no faulty voting machines, trust in the outcomes), preferential voting (you can register your protest with your first choice but ensure that your vote does not effectively elect your least favoured candidate) and compulsory voting (no purging of electoral rolls, voter id laws designed to suppress voting rights of certain groups). How can Americans not see that their version of democracy is so seriously undemocratic!
486
@Susan Our system appalls us also. Fortunately in my state of Maine this year, we had ranked choice voting in certain races, but not all. As Gail pointed out, it will make a difference, mainly in our second congressional district, in which 2 indepedents siphoned votes from the democratic...but they can now be assigned. The count continues at this moment.
40
@Susan:
I agree with you, but old habits are difficult to change. Your democracy is younger than ours and had the benefit of learning from the American experience, its successes and its failures.
I would much prefer a parliamentary system and an electoral system that is independent of all politics. But entrenched interests, mainly on the right wing, like the idea of drawing Congressional districts in funny ways, and suppressing voter access to the ballot box.
But we're trying to be better. Please be patient.
31
@Susan
"seriously undemocratic" is a feature, not a bug, for the Repubs.
39
In 2016, the Greens weren't responsible for the electoral catastrophe and political dysfunction. The REAL problem was that one major party imagined its best candidate to be the corrupt, awful wife of a former president and the other party imagined its best candidate to be a corrupt, awful game show host. If the Democrats and Republicans can't take their mission any more seriously than that, why should voters take them seriously? For what reason, Ms. Collins?
13
I think the answer is, because like it or not, one of them will have enormous influence on our lives. So yes, take the least bad option.
4
@mpound
Hillary was not as bad as Trump. She would have made a better President and that's not saying much.
3
"Why should voters take either party seriously?" Well, how about because one of them wants you to be without the protections of the Affordable Care Act, without which a serious illness will leave you and your family bankrupt. That same party also wants coal companies to be freed to go back to polluting streams, even destroying them, and burning more coal in power plants, which will indirectly kill over a thousand people a year, many of them children. One party is against your right to choose when and how to become a parent, whom you can love and marry, and wants the obscenely rich to become even richer, turning the middle class into a permanent underclass.
How about those reasons? Do any of them inform you about which party is better for you and your interests?
9
Speaking as someone who voted for Kerry, then Obama, then Obama a second time, and then did not cast a vote for President in 2016, I can say for certain that my vote is not "siphoned off" by a third party. Neither of the parties represented me. And that's the Democrats' problem: when they go for "when they go low, we go high" to "when they go low, we kick 'em," they lose a core constituency that used to vote for them because they took the high road - and who now are not courted by anyone, except maybe some third parties that still have integrity.
The Democrats have perfectly represented me, or any of their constituents who aren't blind partisans. But in recent years, they have turned their backs on due process, free speech, and a host of other core issues for cheap partisan gain - but they forgot who votes for them, and who stops voting for them when they abandon their core values.
While obviously Ms Collins feels differently, the Democrats no longer represent me any better than the Republicans do. Hillary wasn't the lesser of the two evils; as her demon, Ralph Nader, aptly put it, they're not alike, but they're both terrible, and to many of us with liberal values that don't change for convenience, Clinton was not less terrible than Trump - and Trump is quite terrible.
Rant away, but if the Democrats would rather win than rant (and I'm not sure that's the case), they need to figure out why they don't deserve the votes they used to, and fix it.
11
@Austin
"Neither of the parties represented me."
Are they supposed to "represent" you and all of your beliefs? No, they will occupy the seat of power and it's up to you to decide which party will use that power to make the nation or your state a better place for all citizens.
5
@Austin You might want to get the full context of the "kick em" reference to Eric Holder's quote. The full context was that Democrats need to fight back and win elections. It had nothing to do with physical violence. Context matter. The media spun this negatively and did a great disservice to citizens. Time for the media to do better and time for people to understand the full context of statements.
4
The last time I felt deluded and excited about voting for a Democrat was Obama - the first time. He disillusioned me quickly (and then topped it off by signing the Monsanto Protection act). Ocasio-Cortez, Abrams, Sanders, O'Rourke, & Doug Jones give me some hope for the party, but I wasn't in a geographic position to vote for them. DNC sold us down the river when they trashed Sanders for Clinton.
1
Our broken country with a broken electoral system could actually function if those elected tried widening their concerns to include individuals not on the donors list or the party kick line. I wish it were not a naive thought to hope that these educated men and women would use their conscience, their intellect and their sense of history and human decency to consider each issue and the impact on all constituents . The ability to compromise, and create consensus is the only way the duopoly we have can address our real issues- otherwise all we have is ranting and raving and useless fake governance .
15
242 years ago, America's federalist system may have made sense, but today it creates so many inefficiencies America is rapidly falling behind China at an increasing velocity. America's method of change, the constitutional amendment, required 157 years before women were allowed to vote.
Equal representation? 600k people in Wyoming have the same number of senators as 40 million people in California.
Perhaps the single most pathetic component of America's election system is there is no mandatory for prior experience, training or even background check for felonies. Trump is the perfect example of a hiring system gone terribly wrong.
With Mother Nature threatening to end life as we know it in as little as 12 years, we can hardly afford an idea created 240 years ago.
52
@Henry J
Two year terms for the US House of Representatives is also and anachronism. I believe one of the reasons for such a short term was the hardship of travel to the Capital at the time. Imagine the sacrifice for small businessmen and farmers to make the slog to the Capital and then have to stay there for two years, No jetting home for the weekend for those Representatives,
Now, with two year terms, they are continuously fund raising for re-election. Perhaps with a four year term they could at least have eighteen to twenty four months to legislate without looking over their shoulders.
15
@mike Term limits is what we need.
1
Collins has it backwards. We need more third parties not less. Many people who vote for third party candidates would never come to the polls if they didn't have this option. Third party candidates are a reflection of the appalling Democrat & Republican candidates being offered. Our major parties too often provide us with the worst two people they can dig up. If the major parties continue to move towards a view that requires 100% agreement with all elements of party orthodoxy, they shouldn't be surprised to see third parties rise up to fill that void. The point of a democracy to vote our conscience. There is no such thing as "throwing your vote away". Pitting this election as a choice between Trump or Clinton is wrong. By doing this, pundits are perpetuating a false dichotomy. There is no "siphoning" votes. The vote belongs to the voter until it is cast. It's never transferred from one candidate to another. The "spoiler effect" is mathematical nonsense. So stop saying I'm wasting my vote. Nothing will ever change in this country if you keep telling the American people that they cannot exercise their right to vote FOR someone they believe in. This will continue being a duopoly and the American people will continue to pay for it...literally. Maybe next time the Reps and Dems will pick candidates worth voting for. Voting is a sacred responsibility and one can only fully fulfill that responsibility by voting for the candidate who best reflects their own beliefs and values.
6
Thanks. The reason we are a third world country is because we really only have one party, the party of the rich. Other countries are strong because they can put labor and green parties in power. We are weak because of this "two" party, one party system.
10
@Stephanie Wood
I agree. Our system doesn't allow for third parties to gain real power. Independent Bernie Sanders had to run as a Democrat or have no place at the table at all. @Bill Brown misses the point, I think, that only in a parliamentary system, where coalition governments are regularly formed, can a "wasted" vote not be wasted after all.
1
@Stephanie Wood....agree, there is only one party, the party of "get re-elected."
It might be political suicide, but maybe the Democrats' platform should include a
Constitutional amendment for Congressional term limits....i.e., no more than 2 seven year terms.
Every single column over the last two years has been about the sky is falling (especially from pundits) with many offering their 2 farthings as to how this came to be.
Even today, we do not know. (let that sink in)
There is the Mueller inquiry that is still ongoing, which may or may not go as far as the oval office, but what has been clear, is that almost everyone else around the President were part of a conspiracy to defraud the American electorate of an an election, and that this administration is a direct result because of it.
There are no do overs, but there is impeachment (inclusive of Supreme Court justices), but Democratic leadership (as usual) runs away from such talk. There has to be compromise at all levels and at all times, and no matter what the other side has done.
This is me rant, (or tribal scream that matches so many others) but I am more than positive about the future, because no matter how many shenanigans go on, demographics, along with the will of the people (the majority of the last 7 out of 8 national popular votes) will be exerted.
Then it will be republicans begging for recounts.
5
Indeed, voting for the wrong guy, just because he was a superb demagogue, promising things he knew could not be achieved, and lying all the way so to gain a 'base' that became oblivious of the truth based on the evidence...as his lying , by sheer repetition, became the gospel truth. And Trump is not the lesser of two evils, he is the evil personified.
50
Ah yes: the old "lesser of two evils" canard.
I disagree, vehemently. In 2016, American faced a clear choice: evil vs not evil. It was that clear.
And yet, here we stand, with Evil ascendant; because millions of Americans couldn't bring themselves to vote for the actual Not Evil candidate.
87
Sorry Gail, but I’ve voted for the lesser of two evils for nearly all of my adult life. In the end, whatever the virtues of making such a choice, you are still voting for evil.
I’m done.
If Republicans and Democrats think it’s terrible that I vote third party, they CAN change that. Put someone I’m willing to vote for on the ballot.
Crazy, right?
I mean, I’m such a radical...
I’d like tuition free state universities, a living wage for all workers, stronger unions, aggressive anti-trust enforcement, actual prosecutions of white collar criminals, an end to endless wars, with pointless murders of civilians and bloated, pork laden war spending back home, fiscal responsibility, accountable police, and yes, strengthened Social Security and Medicare.
Although nearly all of these policy proposals poll at above 50 percent, none of them seem to get off the ground.
That’s where voting for the “lesser evil” has gotten us.
Is Trump horrific?
Yes.
Good.
Maybe, just maybe, he’s horrific enough to convince Democrats to try to appeal to mainstream voters like myself, rather than appealing to their donors by continuing to shadow Republicans on their endless rush to the crony capitalist, corporatist right.
If not, no worries. I’ll just hold my nose and vote for some third party loser and deal with the nasty name calling.
28
@Objectively Subjective. Politicians are like spouses, those that expect perfection are going to be disappointed. Your vote for third party candidates accomplishes the exact opposite of what you want. It’s in your best interests to read the party platforms of the Democrats and the Republicans, the candidates’ history, and make the better choice.
BTW, you are right about big money donors controlling politicians. Now ask yourself this, which current Supreme Court justices would be most likely to overturn Citizens United, those installed by Republicans or Democrats?
27
@Objectively
Crazy, you ask? Yes. The voting booth is not the place to register your unhappiness with the system. All this pseudo-intellectualism aside, you people put George Bush in the white house out of what, spite? Where might we be today if we hadn't gone in that awful direction?
10
Democracy is a nuisance; people make choices other than the ones you do.
That Democrats like Gail Collins feel entitled to the votes of those who cast their votes for the Greens is extraordinarily presumptuous, just as it would be if Greens felt entitled to her vote.
Green votes are not Democratic votes and it is delusional to imagine them in such a way. They are ballots of voters who are alienated from the major parties, who seek a radical alternative, and who might otherwise simply never have voted.
Democrats who wish Green vote tallies to be transferred to their column should, instead of attacking Green voters, think about making their own party adopt a better politics that attracts those voters.
And yes, the answer is in a preferential ballot. The Democratic establishment does not want that because it would make elections more competitive, and Greens might actually win some offices.
This is to say that it is Democratic short-sightedness that should really be the target of any rant.
1
In other words, a two party system is inherently un-democratic and discourages co-operation and an open competition of ideas. In a parliamentary system, a coalition between Greens and Democrats would have won every case you cite.
9
Every single column over the last two years has been about the sky is falling (especially from pundits) with many offering their 2 farthings as to how this came to be.
Even today, we do not know. (let that sink in)
There is the Mueller inquiry that is still ongoing, which may or may not go as far as the oval office, but what has been clear, is that almost everyone else around the President were part of a conspiracy to defraud the American electorate of an an election, and that this administration is a direct result because of it.
There are no do overs, but there is impeachment (inclusive of Supreme Court justices), but Democratic leadership (as usual) runs away from such talk. There has to be compromise at all levels and at all times, and no matter what the other side has done.
This is me rant, (or tribal scream that matches so many others) but I am more than positive about the future, because no matter how many shenanigans go on, demographics, along with the will of the people (the majority of the last 7 out of 8 national popular votes) will be exerted.
Then it will be republicans begging for recounts.
1
Over 100 women will make up the new Congress-maybe as many as 121- most of them Democrats. Gail Collins should be required reading for all of them. The men too.
Those numbers alone should scare Trump as much as Robert Mueller scares him.
15
Better than well said, Gail. Third parties are, in my experience, just public displays of self-righteousness. "I'm too pure to vote for anyone who isn't as pure as I am!" I'd like to ask them whether they think Hillary would have put toddlers in prison camps. Sadly, such arguments can't dent their moral armor.
32
Why are other countries - which are all BETTER countries than the US - able to have strong third parties? I'd fight a war to get rid of this one-party-of-the-rich system. Since both parties are robbing everything I have, I don't have much left to lose anyway.
4
When all the votes are counted in Florida and Georgia, I want the results certified by God, and if God is not available, then by Jimmy Carter.
Ralph Nader may be okay with the fact that his candidacy gave us George W. Bush as our President. I am not. Is he okay with thanks to Bush being elected President, this country is still prosecuting a war in the Middle East, that has caused nothing but misery and suffering and death? I am not okay with that.
He didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 because he thought while she and Trump were "not alike, both (were) terrible" (to paraphrase). What kind of a moral compass does Ralph Nader have? He couldn't discern that while one candidate was perhaps flawed, the other one was an amoral vulgar narcissistic man, who encouraged racism, misogyny, and xenophobia?
Third Party candidates have more power than they should, because just as with Nader, whole elections can turn on the votes they siphon from the other candidates, sometimes with disastrous results for the nation as happened in 2000. I like Maine's new/old solution for dealing with third party candidates of having voters rank candidate preferences on the ballot. I hope "as Maine goes, so goes the nation". And while we're at it, please can we get rid of the anachronistic electoral college? Look at what it gave us in 2016. "We wake up to him every morning".
75
Ralph Nader did not give us Geo W. The electoral college did.
1
Let's not forget that Hillary Clinton was given about an 80% chance of winning the election. The blue wall was expected to hold. Not long before election day, there was talk of a historic landslide. Anyone in the three critical states can be excused for thinking that it would not be close in historically Democratic strongholds. Even leaving aside the slight impact of one vote, one might have felt quite free to vote conscience, protest, or any other criterion rather than lesser evil.
Further, we don't vote directly for president. States cast electoral votes. Anyone not in a swing state will have zero impact on the outcome by voting lesser evil. Again, voting conscience is sensible.
Of course, most elections have no Electoral College. The popular vote is final. In many voting districts, the outcome is not in doubt, as party ID trumps all else. But that's not true everywhere, especially not in unusual elections such as this midterm. Thus, where it might be close, it does make sense to vote the major party candidate, even as a lesser evil.
BTW, regarding Nader's effect on Florida, Gail's being facile. It is very likely that Gore won more votes than Bush. The Supreme Court stopped the counting precisely for that reason. And plenty of dirty tricks were played as well. Don't imagine that, absent a third party candidate, the Republicons would have no other way to steal that election. They are quite creative in that field.
6
@JohnLB. But for Ralph Nader, the Supreme Court wouldn’t have been in a position to influence the 2000 election. That’s her point.
7
@JohnLB Thanks for pointing out that the Florida recount was stopped. That was the real crime the Republicans pulled. I believe it was their secretary of state that pulled the plug.
1
When most of us were young, we learned not to act in vain with the example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Voting self-indulgently is like cutting off the noses of everyone in the country and the world just to express displeasure.
18
"D) None of the above." needs to be on the ballot.
And if it wins a plurality, then the election needs to be done over. Ranked-choice voting would be a good thing as well, but it has to include the "none of the above" option, just in case every single candidate in the race is a stinker, a real whack-o, a collection of rejects. See 2016 Republican presidential primaries for a historical example.
Perhaps the voters of Florida, and a few other states, can use whatever initiative process exists in their staes to mandate ranked-choice voting. Otherwise, if it doesn't suppress liberal votes, it won't happen any other way, because Republicans will block it somehow.
I can see one issue with ranked-choice voting -- it will be contested in court by the Republican party, because it could be confusing for those who vote for Republicans... Trump says "I love the poorly educated." Republicans *all* "love the poorly educated" -- they're easier to just plain fool, you don't have to work to disenfranchise them. Just run a bunch of ads full of lies, and collect their votes. Why are more educated voters less likely to vote for Republicans? Because the kind of Trumpian lies and misleading distractions that work on the less-well-educated don't fool them... educated voters want answers on policy that stand to reason, and Republicans have a hard time reconciling that with their policies. So they lie, and disenfranchise, and then claim a "great victory".
19
Every single column over the last two years has been about the sky is falling (especially from pundits) with many offering their 2 farthings as to how this came to be.
Even today, we do not know. (let that sink in)
There is the Mueller inquiry that is still ongoing, which may or may not go as far as the oval office, but what has been clear, is that almost everyone else around the President were part of a conspiracy to defraud the American electorate of an an election, and that this administration is a direct result because of it.
There are no do overs, but there is impeachment (inclusive of Supreme Court justices), but Democratic leadership (as usual) runs away from such talk. There has to be compromise at all levels and at all times, and no matter what the other side has done.
This is me rant, (or tribal scream that matches so many others) but I am more than positive about the future, because no matter how many shenanigans go on, demographics, along with the will of the people (the majority of the last 7 out of 8 national popular votes) will be exerted.
Then it will be republicans begging for recounts.
3
Every single column over the last two years has been about the sky is falling (especially from pundits) with many offering their 2 farthings as to how this came to be.
Even today, we do not know. (let that sink in)
There is the Mueller inquiry that is still ongoing, which may or may not go as far as the oval office, but what has been clear, is that almost everyone else around the President were part of a conspiracy to defraud the American electorate of an an election, and that this administration is a direct result because of it.
There are no do overs, but there is impeachment (inclusive of Supreme Court justices), but Democratic leadership (as usual) runs away from such talk. There has to be compromise at all levels and at all times, and no matter what the other side has done.
This is me rant, (or tribal scream that matches so many others) but I am more than positive about the future, because no matter how many shenanigans go on, demographics, along with the will of the people (the majority of the last 7 out of 8 national popular votes) will be exerted.
Then it will be republicans begging for recounts...
1
Every single column over the last two years has been about the sky is falling (especially from pundits) with many offering their 2 farthings as to how this came to be.
Even today, we do not know. (let that sink in)
There is the Mueller inquiry that is still ongoing, which may or may not go as far as the oval office, but what has been clear, is that almost everyone else around the President were part of a conspiracy to defraud the American electorate of an an election, and that this administration is a direct result because of it.
There are no do overs, but there is impeachment (inclusive of Supreme Court justices), but Democratic leadership (as usual) runs away from such talk. There has to be compromise at all levels and at all times, and no matter what the other side has done.
This is me rant, (or tribal scream that matches so many others) but I am more than positive about the future, because no matter how many shenanigans go on, demographics, along with the will of the people (the majority of the last 7 out of 8 national popular votes) will be exerted.
Then it will be republicans begging for recounts..
1
"But about third parties. There are ways to deal with them without totally discounting a lot of votes. Maine has come up with a system where everybody can rank their preferences on the ballot. If nobody gets over 50 percent of the first choices, the last candidate gets tossed out and her supporters’ next preferences come into play.
Why didn’t anybody think of this before? “Well, it’s been used in Australia for 100 years,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America, a nonpartisan think tank."
Thank you for this.
Australia also solved their gun problem after the first massacre...and it wasn't with thoughts and prayers.
48
Why don't we just outsource our gov't to Australia, or to Canada?
4
I always read this lady on the weekend especially. It's nice to read truth disguised as humor. One needs a good laugh. The 2-party system doesn't provide it. Ms. Collins does. Whether it's New York or Florida. She's right on.
8
Thanks, Gail, for causally observing what regular NYT regional reporters -- in article after article -- seem unable to grasp. While Donald Trump did win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2016, he didn't hit 50% of the vote in any of these states. In fact, in my home state of Wisconsin, he did worse than Mitt Romney did in 2012.
That's not to say that he didn't get more votes than, perhaps, he should have. But it does undermine the confused narrative of these states falling in love with him in one election cycle only to spurn him in the next.
4
In Georgia, the third party Libertarian candidate siphoned off just over 37,000 votes. One thing at stake is expanded Medicaid that more than 70% of Georgians support. Rural hospitals have been closing, and 37% of areas are considered maternity care deserts with lack of medical care for childbirth or pregnancy crises.
Lincoln wrote, "Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters." One definition of red states.
8
God forgive me, I am one of the 51,463 that voted Jill Stein in Michigan. I sure wasn't going for Clinton after the way her husband stabbed labor in the back with that right-to-work stuff. What a sellout for a Democrat that was. The real problem is we get to vote for unreliable personalities rather than directly on Issues, especially at the national level. After that, government is a matter of misdirecting popular will by suppression and delay---made possible by the messy democratic institutions that fuel demagogs. Let us face the fact that legislation takes place too slowly; they who but serve take their time with the menu. Real citizens deserve an encrypted avenue for instant voting on proposals in order to keep real time control of high speed tweeting. Congress is too slow for this. They should get out of the way and help us a little. How hard would it be to give us an unbreakable voting ID?
1
The Democrats should make ranked choice and vote-by-mail to be one of their main policy initiatives.
5
Third parties would be the good asset they can be if the press
covered them more thoroughly. I believe in throwing my vote as
far as I can in the direction I want the society to go. If enough
people followed this philosophy and it was known far in advance
of an election, it could force the adjacent mainstream party to
shift its platform to address their concerns. But this would work
only if the press covered all parties far enough in advance of the
election. Multiple parties are good for democracy. Incompetent
press coverage is not.
2
@Charles Packer: Yes, indeed, it's the fault of the press. Meanwhile, purists who can't stand the smell of politics vote for Jill and throw the election to Trump!
4
Thank you. You should have written this article.
The voters that voted for third parties in a polarizing election like this obviously wouldn’t have ever voted for your preferred candidate. If they’d found that candidate palatable, they would have voted for them. I know Democrats will never understand this basic fact, but it’s nevertheless true. So what you should ask if you’re a Democrat is: why do we fail to attract the votes of so many people who loath the Republicans - not just Green Party voters, but more importantly non-voters? Might it have to do with the fact that the Democratic Party consultant class has promoted low turnout - don’t present a target election strategies for thirty years and has largely failed to adapt to new circumstances? (There’s been positive signs on that front this time around, with a lot of candidates in all factions of the party ignoring this advice - good!)
2
Here is what the Democrats of my state (and coastal cities) represent to me: extreme inequality, high cost of living, outrageous taxes, homelessness, poverty, segregation. They smell more like the GOP every day. I just couldn't get myself to vote for the rich Goldman Sachs Democrat for governor, and I don't regret voting against him. The last Wall St Dem who won looted the pension fund.
1
A party wins because people vote for that party as the lesser evil, and it campaigns largely as the lesser evil, but then the party always seems to pivot and interpret the outcome as a mandate to indulge the base.
2
What truly mystifies me and something for which I've never seen a reasonable explanation, is why we keep having these elections that are split almost exactly 50/50? Parties have unequal membership from locale to locale, policies differ diametrically, voter enthusiasm is not uniform, yet the results are the same as you would get if everyone flipped a coin. It almost seems mathematically impossible that this outcome could occur with such regularity.
4
@stan continople
I would agree, except that one party has spent a lot of time making it that way.
1
The winner of most US elections is the CantBeBotheredToShowUp Party. Turnout is often less than 50%. At least the Green Party voter bothers to put their rejection of our current political system on the record.
Maybe Republicans and Democrats should ask why so few people want to vote for them in most years?
In fact, one of the stories of this election is that we saw the highest turnout in 50 years for a midterm. And it wasn't just the 'Resistance.' Trump voters also came out, unlike in 2010 when Obama voters stayed home.
4
@Schrodinger The big problem is the parties play to their bases. The reality is to get their candidate elected, that candidate has to pull the independent vote. When you play to your base, you won't get that.
3
Very simple. All states should have the plain run-off system. Top two candidates with less than 50% each should face each other again. Yes, we have ranked-choice voting here in Maine (but not for state-wide elections this time), but I still prefer simple run-offs. I know, another campaign and trip to the polls, right? More money spent. But run-offs would have prevented us Mainers from having a Trump-mini-me as our governor for the last eight years.
16
Much simpler (really it is!) would be to have the same as in Australia, i.e., 1) an eligible voter is required by law to vote, and 2) the voter orders the candidates by preference on the ballot. It is satisfying to know that one's voting choices might not help one's favourite candidate win, but will at least prevent one's least favourite candidate from winning.
What's not to like in that?
18
@Michael Garwood
I would never want to see a law compelling someone to vote.
What I would like is a drastic simplification of the process nationally with suggestions like registration at DMV’s or with applications for alternate forms of ID’s. Then making actual voting less of a deliberate hassle, which could be done in a variety of ways.
And then of course we need to deal with the issue of gerrymandering.
Sad to say, however, there’s no feasible solution to the electoral college and the inequities of congressional representation. Sigh.
3
And yet we are compelled to sit on juries and compelled to pay taxes. Since we are nothing more than slaves who don't even own our own homes, we may as well force ourselves to vote, even if it's against both horrible odious parties.
3
It continues to be an obsolete and increasingly foolish practice to have federal elections under the control of states which impose vastly different standards of eligibility to vote, ease of registration, access to voting, ballot design (see Broward Cty Senate undervote) and other factors. There is no reason to have a difference in the state in which a voter resides create local obstacles to federal elections.
Election Reform for Federal Elections: Remove from State Control.
50
@Lynda Go look at the Australian format for ideas- not perfect, but way better than the 50 different electoral systems that befuddle the USA right now. And yes I know that most of it's the result of grotesque gerrymander. as a big part of the problem.
Instead, we've got a single, independent, overall Electoral Commission - for federal elections, same rules apply equally for all States, all people.
By law, the EC has a charter to ensure impartial boundaries, straightforward registration, easy but well-checked. Elections must be handled effectively - paper-based and with plenty of locations. Postal voting is an easy option.
Results are nuanced and come from "preferential" totals - recounts sometimes needed, but only because the tally is so close, never for political reasons. Polling day is always a Saturday, and while turning up to be marked off the roll (no pic ID needed) is compulsory, you don't have to "vote" - just destroy/discard a blank form.
Our State and local election systems do vary slightly, but the core principles remain - independent oversight, applied equally.
I've been an election desk-official, a scrutineer, an Independent candidate (3 times) and a voter for almost 60 years. I promise you - if you want solid electoral integrity, the Australian system is simple - and works well.
9
@Lynda
That would take a Constitutional amendment, which I would be in favor of.
2
We Greens have supported ranked preference voting like the system in Maine for many years. It is the Democratic and the Republican Parties that block such a new voting system because they want to keep our bi-polar world and their privileges. I don't see a inch of difference between the two major parties on defense policy, our 17 years of warfare in the Middle East, our failed capitalist system, and failed drug policy.
Most Green candidates in the U.S. run at the local level where often one of the two major parties has a near monopoly on power. We run to bring new ideas to the public and speak truth to power--the bipartisan power that got us into this mess and has no ideas on how to get us out.
10
@john If you don't see an inch of difference in those areas, you need an appointment with an ophthalmalogist.
3
@john Everything you say is true. The deck is just too stacked against the multi party system. It is a major flaw. Blame the Slavers and Enablers Club of 1787.
@john
Apparently you did not get the message that "speaking truth to power" is what gets you Bush and Trump.
As for "getting us into this mess", I will point out that the false equivalence of DJT and HRC is what got us into this mess. Green was never going to win - you have to know that.
I'll give you a more cynical evaluation - Greens thought HRC was a lock so they could afford to protest while the D's carried the water. No - wait - I may be wrong. Maybe they thought that they would wake up on Wednesday and find they had been swept into power.
Here's a tip: establish a base locally. Get your "new" ideas out there through local politics and legislation. Look at the Tea Party. Remember they were a bunch of crackpots? Save your protests for rallies and local action but be pragmatic.
How are those protest votes in 2016 working out? Any pressure for a different electoral system for the populace? Do you really think HRC would have gotten us to the place we are now?
3
There's always someplace else that's worse. Here in Germany where I live, there are currently 6 parties in the parliament (Bundestag). The advantage is that it forces some of them to work together in order to actually form a government. Of the 709 seats for example, the Green Party holds 67. Doesn't sound like much, but it gives the party a voice. The Green Party is even part of or leads the government coalition in some states. If voters had simply ignored the Greens to prevent it from siphoning off votes from the "major" parties (Volksparteien), they wouldn't be where they are today. Blaming an election loss on an "outside" party seems a bit undemocratic to me...
10
@Daniel Hawpe
I am an American (registered Democrat) living in Germany for the past 16 years. You are comparing two political systems that are fundamentally different: Germany is a parliamentary democracy in which one of the 6 or 8 or 9 parties must win a majority in an election, or else must form a coalition government with other parties. and in which any party getting over 5% of the vote earns seats in parliament, and a corresponding voice in government, however small. The US is essentially a 2-party, winner-take-all system in each of the three main branches of the federal government, and essentially the state governments as well. While I agree with you (and with my German wife) that it would be far better if we had a parliamentary system, in which parties are forced to work together and to recognize each other, it simply isn't in the cards now, or for the foreseeable future. For now, votes cast for outside parties for whatever reason - be it sincere belief or frustration with the two major parties are not just wasted, they frequently nudge the race to the side that is least desirable (as Ms. Collins points out with the Arizona race and the 2000 and 2016 presidential races), as pretty much all such outside parties are far more closely aligned with the Democratic party. In short, the USA ain't Europe, and never will be. So it is not undemocratic to point out the practicalities of our oh-so-flawed political system. I sincerely wish that your argument were more germane.
18
@Philip Levy You get coalition government once you have enough significant stable parties that no party has a chance of getting a majority by itself. If Americans were divided between 4 significant parties then the parliamentary rules would have to accommodate the reality that no caucus could get a majority. The whole political profession (parties, lobbyists, and all kinds of elected officials) relies on benefiting from the current system and will resist changing it. That's why it reforms only happen where there are provisions for voter initiatives.
1
@Robert David South
I wish you were right, but there is simply no provision in the US Constitution for coalition governments, and a majority is not necessary to win, just a plurality. People who vote for outside parties are voting based on what they WISH their political system to be, and not on what it actually is, and how it functions. And lobbyists are quite active and influential here in Germany as well. As for voter initiatives, while they can be a boon to democracy - such as the one in Florida that re-enfranchised over a million ex-felons to vote in future elections, initiatives can't do anything to stop the ruinous decisions of a Supreme Court, the actions of the EPA, the damage being inflicted on our educational system - all these are consequences of electing Trump. And while I wish that our system could be transformed to accommodate a parliamentary system, that’s a pipe dream, and it is simply unfathomable to me that in the meantime, so many people couldn't do the one thing they needed to do to avoid the chaos and destruction that is upon us, and the bleak future that lies ahead: vote for Hillary. I know I know. Emails. She doesn't "feel" likeable. Pile up all of your justifications for not supporting the only person who could have stopped him- they just don't amount to a hill of beans in this Trumpy world.
3
I think races may be close for other reasons such as polling sites that keep moving, malfunctioning machines, not enough machines forcing long line, etc. etc. Where suspicious snarls and snafus occur--and the race is especially close--recounts should be demanded; transparent recounts.
- Kentucky: rampant problems
http://www.wdrb.com/story/39407281/kentucky-officials-defend-voting-mach...
- Missouri: Ballot-counting machines fail again...
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/election/article2212...
- Arizona: Maricopa Co. with 3/4 of state's voters; continuous problems....
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/06/arizo...
10
@Ann
In Minnesota and Wisconsin, where people vote regularly, we can staff for the "lines" and we know approximately how many tables and machines to set up.
Clearly, you are struggling with a voting competency issue in many of our sister states. You need to teach people to vote regularly, not just to show up when there is a person whose personal characteristics they want to support.
Ask for help from more of the responsible states that can effectively run elections. Lose the political appointees of anybody named Bush. We are STILL cleaning up after the mess those boys made of the counry, and Florida...
If states cannot run effective and fair elections, let the federal government under the current president send troops to protect the polling places and teach the leaders how to honestly count votes in a timely manner.
It really is not that hard to do , when the will to create a free and fair election is present. The losing black Democratic candidates in Georgia and Florida need to accept that they lost in the vote count, and run again if they want.
You cannot let bureaucrats override the will of the voting public because it pays to be incompetent. If we don't vote to select leaders, look at how they do it in other third world countries... We are coming to that?
It is not surprising that Kyrsten Sinema is currently leading the vote count. While she lost rural Arizona counties, she won major urban areas, including Maricopa County (Phoenix), after most of the ballots had been tallied on election night. This one will take some time to sort out, but if she starts to fall behind now, that should set off alarm bells.
And: "... who would kick out his attorney general and replace him with a terrible choice, and then defend said choice by saying he’d never met the guy."
You may have heard about an odd extrasolar object that was first observed in our solar system late last year after making its closest approach to the sun? It is named 'Oumuamua ("messenger sent from the distant past" in Hawaiian). A recent scientific paper (one of the two authors is chair of the astronomy department at Harvard) claims that the most plausible explanation for its trajectory is that it is a thin solar sail constructed by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Unfortunately, it is moving so rapidly that it could not be captured by the sun, so no further observations are possible as it sprints off in the direction of the constellation Pegasus.
After completing their observations and getting quite an eyeful of our current political climate, perhaps the ETs came to the conclusion that they took the wrong exit off an interstellar highway and wound up in a bad neighborhood?
Maybe they decided that they would prefer that they never meet *us*?
25
@Blue Moon
Just to differ a bit on the astronomy ...
http://astronomy.com/news/2018/11/interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-is-probably-not-an-alien-solar-sail
The "paper" appeared on a pre-print website. Occam's razor is needed here.
Still, I have to agree that any alien looking at the US right now would do well to decide it's kinda sketchy down there and pass it by.
2
Third parties always try for the brass ring instead of doing the hard work to win elections at the local level. This top down approach doesn't build a solid base of support for third party candidates.
I've never heard of a third party candidate running for a local offices. I've only heard of third party candidates running for statewide or national offices. If third parties wants to win elections at a statewide or federal level they have to start by running in local elections.
Third parties should make sure that there are no unopposed candidates in local elections. If a third party wants to win the presidency they have to start by winning elections for the school board. If they focus on winning at the local level they will vastly improve their chance of ultimately winning the presidency.
37
@Adam
Excellent point. Many elected positions, especially in small towns, have single unopposed candidates. I have read that's how the Green Party in Europe operates. However, building a national party from the bottom up would require years of work in the trenches building a base and keeping together an ongoing organization, not to mention doing the work of the school boards, boards of assessment appeals, zoning commissions etc. as you build. Very few are ready to make that decades long commitment.
14
Read your ballot - third parties run local all the time.
5
@Adam
It sounds like Hillary Clinton, or another party annointed candidate, wrote this.
Hillary could not compete in the end. She ... stumbled. If you Dems had looked at other candidates before she was predestined via her 2008 loss to first-term Sen. Obama, you might have fieled a winner.
Gail here is pushing you to stick with Hillary type candidates who can't win when there is honest competition. That's why she wants to limit our voting options. Poor Boomers... they could not get it done in their day, and so now they want to choose for us and limit our choices. Sorry ladies, but no. You will have to find a way to get there on your own intelligence and drive, not merely forcing the rest of us to "support" you and your artificial competitions.
4
Ms. Collins nails a serious problem in the workings of our body politic. Do you identify with the Green or Libertarian or other minor party? Then work to persuade others of your ideological goals between elections, and when it's time to vote, take the election seriously because it really, really matters who is actually going to take office!
But I hope Ms. Collins will soon write about the numerically even greater problem, that of all the adult citizens who don't bother to vote, don't understand why doing so is important, don't think it matters, will freely admit they don't know anything about the candidates, and who tragically, and mind-blowingly, are graduates of American high schools.
44
Cambridge, Mass., has used the instant run-off system for decades. I'd guess the reason it isn't more widely adopted is that it threatens the two-party system. Not everyone knows the extent to which the two parties legally prevent competition from third parties. Even in New York, where we had 10 (or 11?) parties on the recent ballot, the obstacles to a third party are substantial.
16
Well said. Independent parties have been spoilers in the USA. You have to work with the system you have and ours is a 2 party system.
23
The 2-party system is horrible. We abolished slavery, gave the vote to women, and now it's time to abolish the electoral college and make the 2-party system and campaign contributions illegal. Every candidate should have the same funding. Otherwise we'll never get out of this morass of feudal rule by the rich.
2
I often have voted for third party candidates in state and federal elections. If I don't like any candidate, I sometimes write in a name. I voted for Ralph Nader in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, and for Jill Stein in 2012. I have no regrets. Although I live in a reliably Republican state, I probably would have cast these ballots even if I lived in a closely contested state. Americans should vote for the candidate they believe to the best choice, regardless of the possible consequences. If more voters selected the best candidate regardless of the candidate's chances of winning, third party candidates might win some elections, which could help establish a third party as a powerful and much needed force in politics and at least would send a message to the Republicans and Democrats that they could not continue foisting so many putrid candidates on the electorate. I nevertheless understand why many persons prefer to vote strategically by supporting a flawed major party candidate who has a viable chance of defeating an even more flawed opponent. Since I respect such voters, I request that those of us who often vote for third party candidates receive respect for our way of voting, too.
5
@Cromer, "flawed" describes every candidate except Trump. Words describing Trump are "crooked", "liar", "cheat", "unprincipled", "rabble-rouser", etc. They do not describe Hillary Clinton. (I am not enamored of Hillary, but Trump is out of sight.)
88
@Cromer
Tough to respect people who repeatedly vote in a manner that results in getting the least desirable candidate elected. Voting is not not the same as protesting at a rally.
Voting and ignoring possible consequences is simply irresponsible.
15
@Thomas Zaslavsky wrote "Words describing Trump are "crooked", "liar", "cheat", "unprincipled", "rabble-rouser", etc. They do not describe Hillary Clinton."
--------
Congratulations Thomas. You seem to have convinced yoursel of that anyway. Now comes the hard part: in a land of free choices, you havet to convince the majority of others, in a plurality of the states, to see it your way and vote like you do.
You don't just get to sit back and whine and complain until the rules are changed to assure your preference a win. Lazy thinking like that loses elections. So does pretending that the president's personal petcare is a top issue for American workers, male or female. Elites like that who think they are making happy jokes are why we stuck with Obama messes over businessman Romney, and why we chose not to let HRC continue making messes like in Libya and elected Donald Trump.
Maybe you can thank Gail, and Seamus the dog, for steering us away from the better candidate because of something so silly...
1
Thank you. European coalition governing is not in our DNA. American politics are always binary, which might be psychologically crude, but that's what we've got. People old enough to know better who insist on casting real votes for imagined parliaments make me question the wisdom of universal suffrage.
21
Read your history. The US had Whigs, and Know-Nothings, and other parties, that disappeared. It would help if the GOP disappeared and certainly wouldn't hurt to see the end of the so-called Democrats too. Both parties have sold the country to the rich.
2
@Stephanie Wood Read your history. New parties could arise as adjuncts to social movements, but a we-vs-they dynamic always obtained in a battle between two sides.
3
Gail, when you're out of material, you're out of material.
Please, let me take over
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/flight-attendant-breastfeeds-passengers-crying-baby-on-flight/ar-BBPujYq?ocid=spartanntp
See you next week.
5
Your Excellency - may I advise you not to go off the deep end with stories such as you listed. There is not local confirmation of this and it could be entirely trumped up news.
1
When a third party candidate drops out after voting has started, thus nullifying the votes of their constituents, it hurts the very reason 3rd parties exist in the first place: to try to break the hold on the 2 party system.
Who would vote for a Green if they knew he or she would not fight to the end. This makes people less likely to vote 3rd party, defeating the very reason for the existence of the 3rd party.
However, in the AZ governor's race, easily won by the incumbent governor, a Republican, the editorial board of the Arizona Republic, in their candidate interviews, said that race's Green Party candidate actually had better ideas and was often in more command of the issues than the Democrat or the Republican.
5
@Paul
Third parties are not, except in their dreams, ever going to "break the hold on the two party system." They do occasionally help insure the worst person gets elected, and garner a lot of ill feeling toward third party candidates, who are never elected. Does the fly actually enjoy being in the ointment?
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@Paul and Peter Aretin, in New York third (and fourth, fifth, ... we had 10) parties can support a major-party candidate and have their votes counted. They can put pressure on that candidate to accommodate the third-party's views. This has been very effective in many (but by no means all) elections. I believe very few states allow third parties to act in this way, but it is one way a third party can be effective.
3
Never say never. Muslim, native American and African-American women ran, and won, in this election. We are very slowly eroding prejudice against race and religion and gender, now let's erode prejudice against third parties. We have independents running Vt and Maine. Why not DC?
4
I'm still not seeing a coherent argument against voting for a third party candidate in an election that is truly safe for either major party. My vote for Stein in Illinois did literally nothing to assist Trump, to say nothing for Nader's vote in DC.
A vote plays two different roles: one as an instrument to increase a candidate's odds of winning, and the other to signal a preference for a candidate and his or her policy proposals.
If it is at all plausible that an election will be close, you should prefer the first to the second and vote for your preferred major-party candidate. If not, then the first issue is moot and you should vote your conscience - If you prefer a third-party candidate, then to hold your nose and vote for a major-party candidate who will win/lose anyway is to throw away your vote.
By voting for Stein, I very slightly increased the signal that there is support for policies like a less aggressive foreign policy along with a green New Deal - an enormous surge in government investment on sustainable infrastructure. In solid blue and red states, having a serious say in who will become the next President is not an option, but you can still signal your preferences
4
@Grebulocities By supporting third-party candidates in noncompetitive states, you're signaling to voters in competitive states that they are worthy of support.
For better or worse, ours is a two-party system. Libertarian and Green voters would advance their causes more effectively by voting for their preferred major-party candidate in the primaries, holding their noses in the general and engaging in activism within the Democratic or Republican parties.
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@Grebulocities In New York, I was able to vote for the candidates nominated by the Working Family Party. These happened to be Democrats but the vote indicated that I supported the Working Family Party. Maybe Greens should do this too.
4
@Grebulocities Small, often one-issue, political parties serve very little purpose in what has been to date a two party system. As I recall there are different standards for third party candidates to be included for debates or voter guides or town halls, etc in each state. States which rarely have close elections are more likely to be friendly to third party candidates and have lower bars for their inclusion.
Voters may feel good about voting for the candidate that best expresses their personal view point, but as far as gaining actual political power, voting for third parties is pretty much wasted, ego-friendly votes in the US.
Many thanks, Ms. Collins for bringing up a topic which is currently not controversial!
6
America, after two hundred some years of cutting its nose to spite its face, should seriously consider dissolving it's republic in order to adopt the British parliamentary system with a true blue American royal family reserved strictly for purposes of pomp and ceremony. How ironic is it that in order to escape the dictates of an unaccountable distant king, the framers created an all powerful office holder they called the president and who John Adams believed ought to be referred to as Your Majesty? Same great flavour, just a (relatively) new label.
17
Gail, you're going to have to get ready for fewer close state-wide elections in Florida now that people who have finished serving their criminal sentences will be able to vote. That ban was always a way to suppress minority voting and now it will be a thing of the past. This could well put Democrats over the top more frequently in Florida's state-wide races.
49
They say in Broward County
No normal ballots there
Made of reprocessed bounty
Or of Donald Trump's Hair.
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@larryeisenberg, you are a national treasure.
5
Get ready for it, Gail! Later this month, voters in British Columbia, Canada (you know, that province north of Washington, Idaho, and Montana - that's 35% bigger than Texas) will decide whether to abandon first past the post elections and go with Proportional Representation (where % of popular vote translates in % of seats in the legislature). It's the one system designed to require co-operation in order to get legislation passed. And, in BC, it would mean the Green Party (who command about 15% of the popular vote) would probably quadruple the number of seats they have.
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@John Kell
If only the U.S. would consider this. Creating an election system where all voices are heard requires educated adults of good character who are interested in governing by blending many viewpoints to achieve a common good.
Have you seen film clips of trump rallies? We lack:
educated adult voters,
voters concerned about good character,
voters interested in governance not 'winning',
voters interested in a common good.
Forty to forty-five percent of U.S. voters want entertainment with violence rather than good government based on well crafted legislation.
A deplorable situation.
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Oh, I wish I was a Canadian...
1
The Maine (or, properly, Australian) "instant runoff" system strikes me as elegant in its simplicity and practicality. It's no surprise that the land of fair dinkum originated it.
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@Peter Czipott - I take it you don't follow Australian politics then. They're almost as dysfunctional as the Americans.
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@Peter Czipott Yes, preferential voting, as practiced in Australia is the solution. All candidates on the ballot paper are numbered in order of your preference. If your first preference doesn't win and no other candidate gets 50%, your vote flows to your second preference. If your second preference doesn't win, your vote flows to your third preference, and so on. That way you can vote for your third party but still ensure that if the third party doesn't win you don't inadvertently give your vote to the party you didn't want to vote for.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/guide/howpreferenceswork.htm
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Given the fact that republican presidents reliably gut environmental regulations, enforcement and safeguards every time they win the white house, and that as a group they don't even believe in science or climate change, why would any Green party member ever take even the slightest chance that yet another republican would win the White House?
I thought Green's first priority was about keeping the earth safe?
Unbelievable.
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@Rich Huff
A friend and colleague of mine is a Green voter. Her feeling on 2016 was, "If everyone voted their conscience, Jill Stein would be president!"
I think she's tragically mistaken about just what percentage of the population actually favors Green policies even in our heart of hearts, but I can't say she's not sincere about it.
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@Rich Huff
What Republican voters do not agree with is giving Warren Buffett billions in tax breaks. They do not believe that giving an additional $100 billion in foreign aid to the autocratic leaders of third world countries. They do not believe that China should triple their CO2 production by 2030 by building coal fired plants in China, Africa and the rest of the Pacific rim.
China alone will add more CO2 to the atmosphere than mankind has added since the beginning of the industrial revolution, just during the 2016-2030 time period. And will remain at that level of CO2 production indefinitely.
? yet Trump loves coal and tax breaks for the rich, I thought that must include Warren Buffett, and now Jeff Bezos' family and the Waltons won't have to pay a penny of inheritance tax for their eventually inherited billions. PS: I paid a huge estate/inheritance tax to get a run-down house with no driveway, $10,000 a year in dividends (all eaten up on taxes for said house), and about $200,000 left after a brokerage firm looted most of the money.
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Fact: Our system is not going to change because our bought-and-paid-for Congress doesn't want it to change. You may loath Trump, but he was produced by the same system that produced Hillary.
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@Dwain
Fact: to change the rules doesn't just require action by Congress. It also requires that 75% of the states agree.
It is silly to suggest that Trump was a creation of the same system as Hillary. Hillary controlled all Democrat state party funding, which she used to purchase essentially all of the super delegates. That meant that a challenger would have to win 75% of the elected delegates to win the convention. She had a full ground organization and full support of the Democrat establishment.
Trump did not have support of the Republican Party, did not have the support of the Koch brothers, did not have a ground organization, spent a third of what Hillary spent.
@Dwain
I wish people who quit trying to blame the system for things. People create systems, not vice-versa.
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@Dwain
The "system" that produced Trump was a father arrested in Queens at a KKK rally, a father-son team that was sued twice by the federal government for housing discrimination, despite accepting subsidies from that government for those projects. It was a system that enabled Trump to skim off funds from Atlantic City casinos , use the federal courts to file 6 bankruptcies and engage in retaliatory litigation against those who had legitimate monetary and equitable claims against him and his companies.The "system" that produced Hillary Clinton impelled her to advocate universal health care and work for children's health. Your blurring of distinctions is intellectually myopic.
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Aunt Gail raises a good point about voting for 3rd parties, but it's an inherently unAmerican idea to advise Americans to not vote for the candidate of their choice, no matter how much retrospective sense it makes.
A better idea is to advise Americans that they shouldn't ever vote for candidates opposed to democracy, voting, voter registration, counting all the votes, representative government, and the 1st, 15th, and 26th Amendments...otherwise known as Republicans.
While it's popular to blame Ralph Nader for the 2000 Election fiasco in Florida where Dubya 'won' by 537 votes, the real villain was good old-fashioned Republican Jim Crow voter suppression of tens of thousands of Democratic votes.
Statewide in 2000 Florida, black voters were nearly 10 times more likely than nonblack voters to have their ballots rejected.
11% percent of 2000 Florida voters were black, but blacks cast about 54% percent of the 180,000 'spoiled' ballots.
Nine of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of black voters had spoilage rates above the Florida average.
83 of the 100 precincts with the highest numbers of spoiled ballots were black-majority precincts.
Jeb Bush also performed an illegal 1999 voter file purge that helped his brother in 2000.
In 2016 and 2018, those same voter suppression tactics helped Republican candidates in Florida, Georgia and other states controlled by Republicans.
The best advice for real Americans is to never vote for unAmerican Republicans in your lifetime.
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@Socrates - of course the best advice is to never vote for Republicans, but Republican voters still will. And so long as there's a chance of them securing a majority, the best advice for everyone else is to vote Democrat.
If that's unAmerican, then the American system is unAmerican.
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@Socrates: But sometimes the third party candidate can force a later run-off by denying an outright win in the primary.
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@Socrates
Yes but...given all of the above, third party candidates usually end up as spoilers in our two party system. Sorry Ralph and Jill.
We do not have a parliamentary system and, yes, we need a cure for voter purges, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and all sorts of Republican voting tricks.
It's called voting for Democrats.
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In Pennsylvania, Michigan , Wisconsin in 2016, Gary [what is Aleppo] Johnson received much more votes than Jill Stein.
If the votes for Johnson had gone to HRC , she would have won these states.
Sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.
In 1968 many voters stayed home and did not vote for HHH.
Tricky Dick was elected and we got another 5 years of the Vietnam War and another 25,000 US dead before middle and upper class parents who did not want their sons dying in Vietnam [if lower class youth died that was all right] put pressure on the Congress to cut off funds for the war.
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I've been holding my nose for so long I'm going blue in the face. I'm wondering if that's what voting blue really means.
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And that children is how we ended up with the EVIL OF TWO LESSERS.
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Its so easy for op-ed commenters like Gail Collins to dismiss third party candidates. If there had been an entry in ballots for "Other," a lot of people would pick that choice.
You should ask the home question, how a political party sends up an unelectable and disliked candidate for major office? then they compound that act with poor electioneering, assuming the voters will just go with their candidate.
When both political parties ignore the vast majority of voters for at least the last two generations you have to expect a soft revolution. But that did not happen because Americans are patient, almost sheep like. But in 2016 they had had enough.
Still in 2018 the establishment Democrats have not learned that lesson, its only independent minded candidates who paid only lip service to the party and went their own way made any impact.
I would hazard a guess that Nancy Pelosi, if she is again elected as leader, will be herding cats instead of a loyal opposition. The newly elected Democrats are not Ryanesque and McConnell robots.
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They've completely forgotten that without 3rd parties we wouldn't have Bernie Sanders. Sort of like the GOP voters' amnesia about the Bush Jr years of horror and the 2008 crash.
@Gary Valan
Your reasoning has a name and a long tradition; it’s called “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Gail is right.
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Said this before on other Times comments, but I'll say it again--biggest problem is destruction of public ed (engineered by R's).
I'm 70. When my brother and I were in high school (middle class), English (critical thinking), history, civics were required courses. No teach to the test garbage.
We studied the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, 3 branches of gov't, how a bill becomes a law, etc.
Fast forward to 2008. I was teaching Early Am Lit at a good community college. First time my students had studied the Declaration of Independence. Our textbook had two columns: on left, Jefferson's draft, on right, the final version he was forced to adopt to keep the slave staves in the Union. They had no idea.
How can people make informed choices when they are denied information--except for Social Media, and we all know how trustworthy that is.
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@Rocky Mtn girl
I went to a good high school in the 70s (NY) and studied the constitution. I even wrote a paper on Marbury vs. Madison. I had no clue what it was about. I dropped out of a Constitution class in college because it was two hours of my professor reading his notes out loud. It was dull and pyhsically painful.
I feel that children (and adults) must have link to history in order to learn it. At 13 years old, I really understood feminism because I was a girl and being discriminated against. But the Supreme Court of the 1800s? Even now I find it hard to understand (although wikipedia helps.)
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@Rocky Mtn girl
I am currently a middle school teacher in NYS. I can assure you that we spend weeks studying both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. While there are always and everywhere a small number of students unable or unwilling to recall things that they have learned, I have confidence that, by the end of 7th grade, our students' knowledge and understanding of US history (inc. the Declaration and Constitution, but also including the contributions of women and minorities throughout our history, the actual cause of the Civil War, etc.) far exceeds that of millions of voters and of our current president.
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@Rocky Mtn
It is true. But don't overlook the complicity of the left, with its pc anti-enlightenment ideology and its everybody-gets-a-ribbon lower standards.
5
President Obama remarked that elections have consequences.
So, too, are there consequences to throwaway votes or sitting out elections. And then we all pay the price.
134
The sad thing with Ralph Nader is that for all the truly beneficial advocacy he had done through the years, his own ego ensured that his ultimate legacy will be George W. Bush's election and his self-righteous commentary.
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@NM
Nader's refusal to acknowledge the damage he did, which includes indirectly bringing about the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraquis, convinces me that he is egotistical, bull-headed and impervious. As to those who refuse to admit the mistake they made in voting for him, you own those three traits as well.
I didn't vote in 1968; I was 21 and lazy and young and dumb. I'll bet my number was legion. I would never spew some high-minded excuse to deflect responsibility for what I helped bring about.
My daughter scrupulously votes in every election because I told her what I did, and she saw the consequences.
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@Trista
I am a bit older than you are. I did vote in the 1968 election; but I, like many people of my generation and yours, couldn’t bring myself to vote for Humphrey because of his support for Johnson’s ruinous war in Vietnam. I voted for every office except president that year, and I haveregretted my non-vote ever since. Humphrey was a fine progressive candidate whose mistake overshadowed for me his true worth, which began, but did not end, with the fact that he was not Richard Nixon. Whenever I hear people wobble, I tell them my story of regret.
31
@Trista My recollection is that Nader rightly said that Gore won the election and it was the supreme court, not him that put Bush in the white house.
Of course had Nader not run, Scalia et al would not have had the opportunity to steal the election from the American people.
16
Our electoral processes are terribly antiquated and not producing ideal results.
We need to transition to online voting, but many people are fearful of the threat of hacking.
There should be a way to vote cast your vote in two or three mechanisms to cross check results.
Our democracy needs to be updated, modernized, and made more democratic.
The electoral college needs reform or needs to be abolished.
And the party nomination process for president strengthened. That the GOP nominated someone who likely colluded with an enemy nation to get elected is unacceptable.
The newly elected Congress seems energetic and full of ideas.
Maybe they will do something.
10
@jan
Washington state has a better system. One can register to vote by mail, in-person or online.
Ballots are mailed to all registered voters several weeks before the election. Voter's pamphlets with candidate statements and arguments for and against ballot referenda are also mailed to all voters. People have time to review ballot measures and discuss them. No one needs to stand in the rain or in long lines to vote.
Mailing the ballots back is free. Or ballots can be dropped at libraries or in drop boxes. The existence of paper ballots means that counts and recounts can be trusted. They cannot be hacked.
115
@jan . . . but, but, but . . . if you do that the Republicans would never win elections. They'll never agree.
5
As long as we have winner take all elections, third parties will be spoilers. It's the nature of our system. If you need a majority to win, the safest way to get there is to strive for a majority of the people to follow you. As this is a zero sum game, both parties will position themselves as much as they can to appeal to at least half the voters. Furthermore, any change to the system will necessarily reduce the electoral power of both parties, so neither party has any motivation to fix it.
6
Steve Margulies, a friend of mine from the San Fernando Valley, worked on Ralph Nader's campaign in 2000, and persuaded me to come to a Nader speech in Hollywood that year. There were a few hundred people present, and the message was decent- I even got to talk with Ralph after he spoke.
I had a bad feeling about it, though. Why vote for someone who isn't going to win? You achieve a protest vote by defeating the bad candidate, in this case W Bush, whose election devastated several countries, including our own.
Nader continues to plead innocence, and makes the absurd claim that possibly most of his voters either would have stayed home or were Republicans. He should have stuck with seat belts and product safety in general.
We have been a downward spiral ever since, and the worst part is that Clinton and even Obama had Administrations that were more corporate friendly than any Democrat's in my lifetime. And let's not even talk about the Republicans, who stole three elections- one by Trump, and two more by W Bush, including messing with the machines in rural Ohio, the key factor in defeating Kerry in 2004.
Today's youth appear to be wising up, showing no fear about fighting for progressive candidates and values. Let's hope they succeed where my own generation failed.
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@Mike Roddy
I suspect the GOP paid Nader to run. And I do hold him responsible for the appointment of George W. Bush as president by the GOP Supreme Court justices.
38
Exactly right. I never have understood the arguments that folks just don't like either candidate, or that they need to express their displeasure by not voting, or by writing in someone who won't win. Our job in these elections is to pick the best of the candidates who actually have a shot at winning, which, sometimes, amounts to picking the least of the evils. In the last election, it was clear that either Clinton or Trump would be our next president, with vast power over our lives and future of our country. It mattered which one of them won. Our job was to make sure it was the better of the two. Avoiding that choice brought us to the chaos upon us now.
326
Thank you, Gail, for defining the problem so precisely. Even if our two major parties' candidates for a given office are equally terrible people- and even if both have gorged themselves on PAC money- they inevitably represent diametrically opposing agendas (or, in Trump's case, a wavering assortment of whatever stupid policy proposals appeal to his prejudices at any given moment). Hillary would have been as terrible a candidate as The Donald only if she had strangled her own grandchild with a shoelace even while personally selling government secrets to Martian invaders. Still, even with lobbyists whispering into her ears 24/7 there's no way that she would have ended up sending two descendants of Torquemada to the Supreme Court or inflating the deficit with additional tax giveaways to billionaire CEOs. The DACA folks would no longer be an issue and, thin-skinned as she is, Ms. Rodham Clinton would never have denounced the press as the enemies of America or cozied up to the despot who hacked our election. Anyone who would still go Green in order to register their disapproval of our system of government demonstrates little but contempt for the idea of saving our nation without resorting to full-fledged insurrection.
492
But you can go green locally, and the voters of Vermont and Maine have done just that.
15
@stu freeman - If only...I love you Hillary.
8
@stu freeman
Precisely. Thank you.
11
Recounts are not unfamiliar to the president. Ask him how many socks he’s wearing, and he’ll use his finger. And then he’ll have to recount, often more than once. But he’s an idiot, so he’s not to be compared to the people who voted for him, who are not idiots, but merely unable to tell a serious candidate from an idiot.
Letting the general public pick the president seemed to be a good idea, and it worked pretty well for a long time. But that was because the slate of candidates were generally well-educated professional people who had a background in politics, understood the law and were rightly awed by the position they were seeking.
That all changed in the blink of an eye (or was it the grope of a crotch?). Suddenly, the electorate had a choice between an experienced, intelligent and politically astute candidate and a narcissistic doofus. For many people there simply was no choice, and the doofus body-surfed into the Oval Office on a wave of white resentment and fake news.
With a few exceptions, the midterms had some decent candidates, or at least they gave the appearance of being able to count their socks. But the split government we ended up with showed just how polarized and undiscerning the electorate can be.
Some say Democrats are at least sharing government with Republicans, but they have the presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court. All we’ve really got is a better vantage point from which to view the chaos.
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@gemli
Paul Krugman's analysis of "Real v. Senate America" pretty much explains how we got to a split government with the doofus in the Oval Office.
As a minority, "Senate America" can only sustain the status quo through voter suppression, purges, and gerrymandering in "Real America". If we can see the chaos from a better vantage point and act on it, the next big wave will really give Trump a bad hair day.
90
@gemli
We won a fighting chance, which we would not have gotten if we had not won the House.
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@gemli
Hi Gemli. I almost always agree with your positions and arguments. Love your politics. But, as an avid Reddit lurker you may need to add a TLDR summary. Such good thinking may put off the engaged but distracted. All in good faith. Cheers to the Blue Wave!
Charlie
16
Ranked-choice voting is indeed a solution to the clueless third-party candidates. The self-righteous and unrealistic can choose their fave in the #1 spot and still choose the candidate who may win and who they prefer as #2, leaving the other mainstream candidate at #3.
If there is no majority for a candidate, the lagging candidate's votes are distributed according to voters' other preferences.
In Santa Fe, we had 5 mayoral candidates. The eventual winner had a plurality from the beginning, but it took 4 cycles for him to get a (65%) majority. For N candidates, the maximum number of cycles possible is N-1. No minority winner, no runoff election, easy-peasy. All elections involving more than two candidates should be run this way.
144
Perhaps other states will follow Maine in voting in ranked-choice voting (instant run-off elections)? In this system, one votes a prioritized list of all of the candidates, so that if one choses a marginal candidate as a first choice, once they get bounced for having a smaller number of votes, one's second choice gets counted. For instance, one can vote Green as first, and Democrat as second without underminng the Democrat choice. Hey, Australia's found it the most equitable system for over a century!
122
Lesser of three evils. Oh, please. Some, if not most of those people are voting for causes that the candidate espouses. Whether Libertarian, Green, Republican, Democrat, or Independent, those votes count. Except that they are not counted. Did parties really look at WHY people voted for those who did not win and say "Maybe there's a contingency here that we are not representing?" Apparently, not.
So, we get Trump. We get Sessions. We get McConnell.
Time to listen to voters. Those who do not choose winners still have valid concerns. Who is listening?
12
@William Menke Sure they have valid concerns. But the winning party does not have to listen to them. When the losing party listens they have no power. How does that their concerns?
5
Is the two-party system enabled (enshrined) by the fact that we have an aisle in our legislative chambers that divides the pugilists? Do parliamentary systems do it that way, or are the various parties arranged helter-skelter, grouping together only to make coalitions on a per-bill basis?
If my suspicion is the case, then the actual arrangement of congress is forcing us to have a two-party system. But is that arrangement constitutionally required? Did The Framers envision our system as strictly binary?
Just askin'. I'm really pretty ignorant about these matters.
11
@Alan
Gail makes me chuckle with this: "The moral is that there are worse things than voting for the lesser of two evils. We wake up to him every morning."
She doesn't want to acknowledge, still, that half of the American voters -- in the plurality of states -- employed her reasoning and chose the lesser of two evils in 2016.
That is why Hillary "I'd still like to be president" Clinton lost. Hopefully Gail can convince her readers that another go by Hill is not going to get American women the White House...
6
@Alan In the House of Commons in Britain and the House of Representatives in Australia, the members of the government and members of the opposition sit on opposite sides of the chamber, as in the USA. Their respective areas are separated by red lines, traditionally placed two sword lengths apart. During debate, members may not cross these lines.
Members of minor parties and independents sit on the cross benches at one end of the chamber.
I fear Americans didn't read the warning I gave months ago against voting for candidates with no hope of winning. In Australia we have the luxury of such a protest vote, but in the USA such votes are wasted.
29
@Alan - minority governments in parliamentary systems usually form coalitions, or at the very least a confidence and supply agreement which gives them a secure majority in order to govern. Not unlike the way Bernie Sanders is independent but caucuses with Democrats.
The problem is that without some kind of proportional voting there is very little room for third parties to grow, as demonstrated by the American Green Party which reliably wins absolutely nothing, ever.
12
Thank you very much, Gail - too often we forget that our only weapon is our vote, and we must use it strategically.
In local elections, it's probably not as disastrous to vote one's conscience, but in a federal election for Representative, Senator or POTUS, there aren't enough lib'ruls evenly scattered around to let the perfect be the enemy of the good - at least not until we abolish the Electoral College or enough states have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Meanwhile, can't we cancel this wannabe version of The President Show ? The ratings are in, and after 2 years, His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness led his party to losing close to 3 dozen House seats, and 7-8 governorships - won't the network bigwigs please yank this travesty ?
Of course, Very Stable Genius can drag this all out longer if he chooses - then maybe Texas can have another stellar election cycle like Tuesday where 19 of the 20 sitting GOP'er appellate court judges running for re-election get thrown out; nicely balances McConnell's Judicial Juggernaut run amok.
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