Slashdot Mirror
Third-Party and Independent Ballot Status
jsrjsr writes "Ballot Access News reports on the number of states where various candidates will be on the ballot. The site also contains a wealth of news about ballot access and other election-related issues."
There is absolutely no way somebody other than Bush or Kerry is going to win in November... the American presidential election system just doesn't play that way.
Every state, plus Washington D.C., holds its own election that determines which set of electors will be sent to the electoral college. Almost all are in a winner-take-all format where the candidate with the most actual votes takes all of the state's electoral votes.
If a third party candidate is able to somehow upset both Bush and Kerry and take a state or two, they'd possibly pull things so that nobody gets a majority of the electoral votes. Realistically, a third candidate of the strength of the other two would result in an even 3-way split, which would most certainly promise that nobody can capture a majority. If that happens... the whole system turns on it head.
The electoral votes are tossed aside, and the newly elected House of Representatives gets to vote in a one-vote-per-state fashion to pick the new president.
In short, a third party candidate has no way to win the direct election, and can only hope to kick the election into the House's hands. However, if that third party doesn't have any representation in the House, they're going to crash there. In short, you can't start a new party at the presidency... you have to start building it with smaller offices before you can approach the Oval Office.
Isn't this what the new Slashdot politics subsite is for? I don't see how this any specific technological issues(e.g, Diebold) that justifies inclusion on the main page.
The best reason to vote third party is to influence the policies of the two major parties. If the dems or reps see enough voters get behind a major third party issue, they will adjust their platforms to try and capture those votes.
Of course it is up to us to be an informed electorate and hold our leaders' feet to the fire when they fall down on their campaign promises. I am actually going to vote democrat for the first time in many years for exactly that reason... Bush's record is really rather horrible when bother to look past the spin and really check the facts.
The Bolachek Journals
I love how these so-called non-partisan laws are used to challenge 3-parties while the majors get their way. In Illinois these laws state qualifying names must be submitted by August 30. The Republican convention was held in Sept. If these laws were equally applied to the Majors, Dubya would not be on the ballot. I'm glad my Libertarians are on the ballot. They do a pretty good job at getting on all ballots. I don't delude myself that they will win because of it, but I hate when these laws only appear to apply to everyone but democrats and republicans.
I frequently get asked why I "throw away" my vote by voting for a third-party candidate for President.
Sometimes people are nice about it, but too often it is an accusation. Apparently *I* am responsible for the fact that Al Gore did not get elected in 2000.
I have written on this subject before, but I wanted to cover some other information today.
One reason I vote for third party candidates is that they bring to the table issues that the major candidates may not normally mention. In order to try to sway third-party candidates, the major candidates will co-op some of the platform of smaller candidates. Had Al Gore paid more attention to *why* people were voting for Nader, he might have pulled in some more votes. Had he pulled in about 600 more votes in Florida, what would have happened?
From Open Debates: "Third-party candidates have introduced popular and groundbreaking issues that were eventually co-opted by the major parties, such as: the abolition of slavery, unemployment insurance, social security, child labor laws, public schools, public power, the direct election of senators, the graduated income tax, paid vacation, the 40-hour work week, the formation of labor unions, and democratic tools like the initiative, the referendum and the recall."
In related news - "The Commission on Presidential Debates may have violated federal election laws when it refused to allow any third-party presidential candidates into the debate halls to watch the 2000 presidential debates, a federal judge has ruled."
I would definitely suggest checking out the entire Open Debates sites. Pay special attention to the New section that has editorials from tons of newspapers calling for the inclusion of third-party candidates in the debates.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
As somebody who almost always votes Libertarian, I've done a lot of thinking, and I think that the real reason that 3rd party candidates will never have a chance in the US us due to the media. The media reports every 30 seconds what they think that the votign breakdown will be (ie: 45% Democrat, 51% Republican). The problem is that people always get into this "throwing away my vote" mentality. What needs to be done is polls need to be eliminated. All polls. They need to be made illegal. Voting in this country was designed to be a system in which each person votes for the person that they want to elect. Period. The media plays a very, very significant role in convincing people who they should vote for, and that just fucks everything up. As long as the media is reporting that the Democrats have this much vote, yada, yada, nobody is going to bother voting for a thrid party candidate because they believe that they will be "throwing away their vote". Ban public election polling.
Registered Libertarian.
I don't respond to AC's.
Not true. Don't forget there are some third-party conservative candidates. You aren't even giving any leeway to those who live in "safe" states (e.g. I live in SC--any vote is basically pointless). Also, some studies indicate that many of the people who vote third-party wouldn't have voted otherwise. (Sorry I can't point to a web site to back this up). We should never punish Americans who vote their conscience, who aren't willing to settle for the "lesser of two evils" when a good may exist. If you are concerned about Kerry getting elected, you should focus on the 25% of eligible voters who don't bother to show up. They are the only ones "throwing their votes away."
Live free or die
Remeber, you don't have a right to complain if you don't participate in the democratic process.
... [or] to petition the Government for a redress of grievances (unless one does not vote, in which case one has no right to complain)."
He's right, you know. It says so right in the 1st Amendment: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech
As somebody who almost always votes Libertarian...
What needs to be done is polls need to be eliminated. All polls. They need to be made illegal.
Better take another pass over your Libertarian handbook. Start with index entries "Force, Initiation of" and "Government, Big."
..watching politics for a long time. The media coverage is vital. Whenever third parties and candidates get even close to normal coverage they do quite well. If they got equal coverage I'd bet we'd have huge numbers of third parties in every aspect of government at every level, but they CAN'T get coverage. This lasts a few cycles then a third party guy gets coverage, gets millions of votes. Lather, rinse, repeat. Now I think they realise they should never cover third parties except for negative spin stories, well, like you see here.
The real biggee I remember was the national debates, you get some guy on there, and you can see third parties are viable. I'd blame the media and it's obvious brainwashing and propoganda efforts more than any other reason for the dominance of the R and D criminal cartel. And calling it a criminal cartel is the truth-they are. At the top, the mass media is owned by a handful of billionaires, so you will only see media reports that perpetuate their own corporate blow dried alleged "candidates". And since the rise of independent press and the internet, they realise their monopoly on info was threatened, so they had to come up with some way to insure the corporate party candidate gets in always, hence blackbox voting.
People in the USA need to wake up that they live in a dictatorship, that their vote itself comes pre-wasted for them. The only wasted vote are all the ones cast thinking that it will make a difference, because it won't, the corporate party "won" a long time ago and now runs bi annual political melodrama TV fiction shows to keep people amused and faked out.
I mean, c'mon, two skull and bones white male connected elite globalist millionaires as the "choices"? How blatant does it have to get?
I would also argue that Republicans supporting Nader is not an ethical problem. A peculiarity, yes. But it's the electorate who pulls the lever, not the Republican party. Every voter makes their own decision.
Suppressing a candidate from appearing on a ballot is a far, far more serious charge than informing the public about an opposition candidate.
Registered Libertarian.
You might be registered, but your post proves you're no Libertarian. "Government regulation is good if it helps us get into power" isn't a libertarian ideal.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I usually vote 3rd party as well but not this year. Only one candidate.the President, will take it to the Terrorists. The stakes are to high to vote on any other "issue".
Fighting terrorism with fullscale war is like trying to perform surgery using a sledge hammer. Yes, you can remove some unhealthy tissue that way, but you end up doing so much damage that the
patient usually dies on the table.
The way you fight terrorists is by infiltrating them, undermining them, making small surprise raids in the middle of night. You work to turn the local populations against them, turn one group against another. Full-on war and occupation comes with inevitable civilian collateral damage, which creates an ideal recruiting ground for the terrorists. Russia has seen exactly this happen in Chechnya. They have been so aggressive within Chechyna that it has turned much of the local population against them, and driven the terrorists to even more radical behavior. We are also seeing that happen in Iraq. It is no accident that anti-american sentiment is at an all time high around the world, and last year was a record year for terrorism activity.
Bush needs to start using the scalpels of diplomacy and intelligence work and put away the hammer of war. Perhaps if he did that, we would actually catch Osama.
Cheers,
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
eh? You just proved his point for him. How do you call that flat out wrong?
k =6
292 vs. 15,000?
Even worse,
Badnarik on foxnews.com
6, yes 6 damned hits.
Kerry has 5,000 hits.
I think it's more than obvious Fox does not care to cover the other candidates much.
So lets recap here.
Bush=15000
Kerry=5000
Nader=292
Badnari
You're right, that's not biased in the least, is it?
The people I talked to usually didn't speak English, weren't from the district, or weren't registered voters (and you can't legally register someone and have them sign on the same day). If I could find a registered voter who lived in the district, often they didn't sign for a variety of reasons (too busy, scared the Democrat might lose, wanted to think it over).
When the Green Party was on the New York state ballot, you only needed a dozen or so signatures, not hundreds with all of those conditions. Miraculously, he made it on the ballot, but there is no way he would have survived a challenge if one had been made.
It gave me a new appreciation of the whole talk about the two party system and so forth. Plus, the two parties work together to keep their monopoly of power, from election laws, to debates, to whatever. Only a large social movement united around cohesive goals could launch a challenge to it. The last time this happened was in the middle of the 19th century, with the Republican party. Since then, third parties have been co-opted by other political parties - the right wing of the Socialist party drifted into the Democratic party, most of the Dixiecrats entered the Republican party.