Vote swapping, redux
Read an interesting article on vote-swapping in Wired today. Yep, after fits and starts in 2000 they’re trying it again. The article posts several links to sites like the Triangle Vote Movement discussion list and Votepair.org. To some degree I kinda like the idea, as it allows more savvy citizens to express themselves at the ballot box while still being mindful of the consequences of voting. For the life of me I can’t figure out why Florida, Arizona, Minnesota, and Wisconsin find the practice illegal; maybe if there were money exchanged or some sort of coercion, sure, but as long as the exchanges are grass-roots and voluntary citizens should be able to pair up votes just like legislators do all the time.
However, I had to raise my eyebrows at this quote from George Getz, the Libertarian Party’s communications director
People who are voting for third parties are disgruntled with the other two, and the only way to make those parties change is to make them feel a little bit of pain.I understand how the sentiment arises, but I think this disgruntled, us-against-the-world attitude from smaller parties does them—and voters—no good. Instead of being petulant, it would behoove minor parties to drum up more significant support by, oh I don’t know, maybe advocating issues and views that significant portions of the electorate really care about; personally, I think the abysmal support that minor parties get is earned on merit rather than a Democratic-Republican conspiracy.
Yet, what bothered me more about Getz’s quote was the last half: throwing support to minor parties doesn’t hurt the major parties nearly as much as it hurts the electorate at large! If a minor party continually pulls enough support from its closest major party (say the Greens and Democrats), then the other side will stay in power and continually move things farther from the direction that the minor-major party combo (and thus perhaps a majority of the electorate) want things to go. Until a minor party can really gather a strong support base, instead of trying a "direct assault" on Election Day, that party’s supporters could be much more effective, in the sense of trying to get their agenda accomplished, by trying to play the Democrats and Republicans off each other.