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There are less convenient but perfectly legit ways to work with the system we have. Sure, Condorcet might be better, but in the meantime you can achieve a similar effect by getting together with some friends and pooling your votes. If you live in different states, you can try something like Votepair so your 1st choice votes go to a state where your 2nd choice hadn't a prayer anyway.

Aye, that was sloppy of me.

I was referring to the 2000 elections and the difficulties Nader caused the democrats, when I segued into the fact Republicans defended the green party in the state I'm living (which happens to be a swing state). I meant to say it "keeps the green party" on the ticket, not Nader.

Oddly, I heard of vote trading where people promise they will vote for your 3rd-party candidate of choice in their state if you promise to vote for Foo (usually Kerry) in a swing state. This might be a real solution to supporting 3rd parties, although only at the national level.

Al Gore did not loose the 2000 election because of people voting for Nader or other candidates; Al Gore lost the 2000 election because he did not do a good job of convincing enough of the American people that he could be an effective and competent President.

Actual reasons Gore lost the 2000 election:
(1) We have a screwed up electorial college system that violates democratic principles and violated the popular vote.
(2) We have a broken simple plurality voting system which prohibited Nader voters from also registering the fact that Gore HAD convinced most of them they he would be a more effective and competent President than Bush. They should have been able to rank Nader 1 Gore 2 and Bush 3. It would also have allowed some of them to rank Nader 1 Bush 2 and Gore 3.
(3) To be strictly unbiased this third point is neutral rather than supporting Gore. The fact is that the Court ruling deciding the case had almost zero legal legitimacy, even had it broke 5-4 in Gore's favor. The situation was an absolute mess and there was no accepted compelling legal basis on either side. Virtually everyone who looks at the case simply rationalizes the result that would support their preffered candidate. That is not legal legitimacy - that is pure self-serving rationalization on both sides.

We desperately need to abolish the screwed up electorial college, we desperately need to institute a rational voting system (Condorcet is the best, with Instant Runoff being a flawed second choice), and we desperately need to institute national election standards.

Two of those fixes would have would happen to have prevented that screwed up Bush win, and the third would have would have avoided an uncredible ruling deciding the election. Even a credible ruling in support of Bush would have been better than the uncredible ruling we did get.

I recommend that you not vote for what you consider the lesser of two evils

I wonder if you are making a rationalied argmuent based on YOUR interests. Of course those advocating voting for the "lesser of evils" may me motivated by selfish interests, but there is a clear and obvious justification in encouraging someone to vote for their prefferable of reasonably electable candidates. That could clearly benefit that voter in getting his prefferable of available outcomes. I'm not sure what unselfish motivation your advice has, to try to benefit him.

If you really do advocate voting for a first-choice but unelectable candidate, then I ask if your major party candidate really is your ideal candidate. By your logic you should write in the name of someone better.

And if you realy are giving advice for his benefit, I wonder what your oppinion would be for him to sign up with VotePair.org and get that 3rd party candidate vote registered in a non-battleground state while registering his major-party prefference in his home battleground state. It would be a win-win situation for him, getting everything he wants.

Or are you perhaps worried that the majority of non-republicrats consider your preffered candidate to be less effective and less competent for president than his major-party opponent?

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How would you like to get your Cobb vote AND get that swing state vote against Bush? Votepair.org has thousands of registered Kerry supporters in "safe" red and blue states willing to vote for your choice of candidate for your swing Kerry vote.

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If you want register your 3rd party support you can still do so through Votepair.org. They have thousands of registered Kerry supporters in "safe" red and blue states willing to pair up with you and vote for your choice of candidate. If you lean Bush, sorry, I'm not aware of any votepair site with registered Bush supporters willing to assist you.

Clearly neither candidate is quite what you want, but I think you underestimate the difference between Bush and Kerry on your issues. Bush wants all of the Patriot act to be permanent and wants Patriot act 2. Kerry says there are problems with the patriot act and wants to roll back at least parts of it. As for corporate handouts I don't think you can get much more business-slanted than Bush. I am not aware of Kerry's position on campaign finance, but Bush and the Republicans have the closer business ties and more to lose from such changes. Taxes - Ok, Kerry wants to roll back Bush's tax cuts on those making over $200,000. However this is really linked to the next issue - spending. At least Kerry want to try to balance the bloody budget. The top graph here shows Bush's exploding deficit and the bottom graph shows his out of control spending. As for foreign intervention, I think it's clear Kerry is far more reserved than Bush's cowboy unilateral activism. I'm not sure on issues of economic regulation, but Bush is an absolute crusader on social/moral issues along with his pal Ashcroft. Bush is playing to his religious evangelical base, and he has been appointing the most radical social/moral conservative judges he can find. Of all my problems with Bush, I am most horrified by the prospect of him appointing up to three Supreme Court justices. Note that any Supremes Kerry appoints would have to be centrist judges with impecible records, as he needs to get them approved by a Republican controlled Senate.

I absolutely support election reform, and I definitely think we need to shift the government in a libertarian direction (though I don't support radical parts of their platform), but in the mean time I hope you consider Votepair.org. Get that 3rd party vote registered AND boot out the worse-of-two-evils.

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Here you go: http://votepair.org/

One possiblity you can consider is vote trading.
IANAL, and I am sure that this is against some laws

The Republicans made threats and intimidated a few vote exchange websites into shutting down in the 2000 election, but at least one such site sued with ACLU support and affirmed that they are perfectly legal.

VotePair.org has thousands of registered Kerry volunteers in "safe" red and blue states willing to vote for your choice of Nader, Badnarik, or Cobb if you want to make a battleground vote for Kerry.

I am not aware of site for 3rd party voters who want to pair up with Bush voters, but I'm not exactly crying over that. Chuckle.

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www.votepair.org

(depending on who you think is less evil...)

Probably because there's no points for second place in American democracy. Al Gore beat Bush in the popular vote, and almost beat him in electoral votes, but the Democratic party has had little influence on the course of the nation the past four years. Think about it: ten million more Nader votes wouldn't have made as much difference as a few hundred more votes for Gore in Florida.

HOWEVER, there is an interesting story on Slate.com about trying to promote the agenda of progressive third parties without tipping things to Bush (http://www.slate.com/id/2108641/). The concept is called "vote pairing". The idea is that you get supporters of independents in swing states (Florida, Wisconsin) to connect online with Kerry voters in decided states (California, Utah, Texas) and they agree to swap votes: the independent voter will vote for Kerry in the swing state, and the Kerry voter will vote for the progressive(Nader/Cobb/Badnarik) in the secure state. The idea is that by working together, voters can vote against Bush where it matters and for a progressive where it won't throw things to Bush. The web the VotePair site is http://www.votepair.org/. Given how close the race was in 2000, it is conceivable that this could actually make a difference. So far, they have gotten a lot of interest from Kerry voters who would like to see their vote count in a swing state, but they don't have enough third party voters participating.

Sorry, man... as long as we still use the archaic, undemocratic FPTP voting scheme, I will NOT throw away my vote. I might consider using something like VotePair, but I actually really like the democratic candidate thsi time (my only beef is his views on Isreal, but hey, Dean said what I felt, and got slammed by AIPAC).

Seriously, the only way to really get any 3rd parites involved is to update the horribly unrepresentative vote counting system in this country.... but before we do anything *really* profound like oh, say, instituting IRV, for example... I think we first have to look at other forms of electoraly dysfunction like Diebold and vote-disenchranchisement.

The coward is correct about Peroutka. I was going to say that I would give Bush four more terms before letting this nutjob take the helm, but then I realized that the moment he took office, everyone would stop taking the presidency seriously. Having a complete loon occupying the White House would just be harmless entertainment.

If you see any difference between the two candidates at all, and you're in a close state, you should vote for the lesser evil, not the guy-you-really-want-but-doesn't-have-a-shot-at-get ting-elected. Try hopping over to Votepair.org, and support your candidate without turning him into a dreaded spoiler.

http://www.votepair.org/

"In vote-pairing, swing-state progressives whose first instinct might have been to vote for Nader, Cobb or Badnarik are paired with Democrats (and others whose first choice for President is Kerry) in 'safe' states where either Bush or Kerry has a decisive lead. Paired voters can communicate with each other and decide to vote strategically: swing-state participants for Kerry and safe-state participants for Nader, Cobb or Badnarik. As a result, the paired voters' support for progressive third parties is recorded in the popular vote and their preference for Kerry over Bush finds voice in the Electoral College."