Attempts by third-party candidates to inject themselves into the national political conversation have become fruitless. At best, they can mobilize some voters and bring increased awareness to certain issues. At worst, they perpetuate the problems with the Electoral College that make a small number of votes in swing states disproportionately significant.
The mistakenly optimistic concept behind voting third party is simple: Every voter has their own set of priorities. It should not matter whether a candidate has a chance to win because those votes affect the national narrative and show up in the data. The two major parties use that data, at least in part, to decide how to shape their platforms. In this way, democracy works, and every voter plays some sort of role in shaping federal policy.
Things play out much differently in reality due to two major facets of our voting system: the Electoral College and the electoral system of winner by plurality. Voters who are planning to vote for a third-party presidential candidate should instead vote for the bi-partisan candidate that most closely represents their views.
Recently, the presidential election has been decided by the Electoral College votes from no more than a handful of swing states that are won by a small margin. The deciding margin is often a smaller number than the votes received by third-party candidates in those states.
In 2020, President Joe Biden succeeded in swinging Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin to his side, after former president Donald Trump received the electoral college votes from all three in 2016. Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes, Georgia by 12,670 and Wisconsin by 20,682.
That year, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen received 51,465 votes in Arizona, 62,229 in Georgia and 38,481 in Wisconsin. That discrepancy between winning margins and third-party votes is why Republicans are trying so hard to get Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off the ballot in swing states, and why Democrats have sued to keep him off the ballot in some states. Both parties are aware that their road to the White House can be blocked by a candidate with no chance to win the presidency.
Third-party candidates would have a much greater influence on our politics were it not for the electoral system of plurality. Plurality in its simplest form is the idea that the candidate with the most votes is declared the only winner, even if that candidate received less than a majority of the votes.
This is what leads to the “spoiler” effect that can occur in presidential elections. In a non-plurality system, which many nations use, governments are set up in a manner that provides representation to minority voters. In America, that could present itself as a split of Electoral College votes, done any number of ways.
Currently, the practical effect of third-party candidates seems to be a detraction from whichever of the two major party candidates more closely aligns with their policies. In other words, they are taking votes away from the major party candidate that most of their voters would choose if only given two choices.
There are many points of view on how America should change the fundamental structure of its systems of governmental representation. Nothing will change before November, and citizens inclined to cast their vote for a third-party candidate would be wise to vote strategically for the bi-partisan candidate that most closely aligns with their views on policy.
To do otherwise is to put their idealism before the practical reality of representation that our electoral systems provide.
Sean Shanks can be reached at [email protected].
