The problem is the voting system
Last week I wrote a blog urging American progressives to get behind John Kerry in spite of his right-wing tendencies. Should leftists hold their noses and vote for the unrepentant “new Democrat” from Massachussets in order to beat Dubya, or should they throw in their lot with some valiant no-hoper who better reflects their views? This has been a hotly-debated topic, especially since the great white hope of the anti-war movement started yelling out the states of the union in Iowa last month.
The issue has been brought into even sharper relief by Ralph Nader’s decision to once again run for president. Last week “The Nation” ran an editorial pleading with him not to run. A new website www.ralphdontrun.net was quickly established. The erstwhile consumer advocate has chosen though to ignore the advice of the Anyone But Bush brigade. Speaking on “Meet the Press” Nader vowed to use his candidacy to attack the “corporate occupation” of Washington. Perhaps more interstingly, he also justified his decision to run by reference to the concept of democracy itself. “More voices, more choices” was his constant refrain.
Watching him, I felt it impossible not to agree with what he was saying. Yes, Democrats care more for Wall Street than Main Street. Yes, people should have choice in a democracy. Nevertheless the fact remains that a Nader candidacy will help Bush. Every vote for Nader is in turn one less potential vote for Kerry which is in turn one less potential vote to beat Bush. No, it’s not fair but it is true.
The real problem is not Ralph Nader, it’s the system itself. The US is one of the few democracies in the world which persists with the first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system. This crude, winner-takes-all system is a pre-mass-literacy dinosaur which should be made extinct. It is quite simply grossly, grossly unfair. In Britain, one of the few other hold-outs, FPTP gives the Labour party 70% of the seats in the House of Commons with only 43% of the vote.
In America the problem is not so much lack of proportionality as lack of choice. The system perpetuates the two-party duopoly by making it extremely difficult for a third party to win representation at any level. Votes for third parties are seen as “wasted” since they don’t count in the Republican .v. Democrat arm-wrestle. Because third party candidates have no chance of winning, they are portrayed as spoilers, as Trojan horses for one’s ideological opponents.
Those who sympathise with the Greens feel a strong urge to vote Democrat in order to keep out the Republicans. This phenomenon of tactical voting is the curse of all FPTP systems. Right-wing Democrats have traditionally exploited this. Their message to progressives is always the same: “You don’t like us but you have to vote for us or else someone even worse will get elected”. Clinton, Gore, Kerry et al have used the two-party duopoly to ignore the concerns of the poor, the unions, the environmentalists etc.
A system of Single Transferable Vote (STV) would be much fairer. This system is usually used with multi-member constituencies but, as the link at the bottom of this blog shows, it works just as well in presidential elections. Without going into too much detail it works like this: The voter selects candidates 1,2,3 etc in order of preference. A quota is set (for presidential elections it would be 50%) and votes are counted. If no candidate reaches the quota on first preferences then the bottom candidate is eliminated and their votes redistributed. This process is repeated until a candidate makes the quota and is elected.
The beauty of this system is that it removes the need for tactical voting. For example, leftists can vote Nader 1 to show their true feelings and then vote Kerry 2 to keep out Bush. Assuming that the electoral college was ditched and all votes were countednationally, here’s a hypothetical result:
Bush: 45%
Kerry: 45%
Nader: 10%
No candidate makes the quota of 50% so the bottom candidate (Nader) is eliminated and his votes are distributed. If 90% of Nader voters give Kerry a second preference then the final result would be:
Bush: 45%
Kerry: 54% (45+9)
Kerry would be elected but only with the support of Nader voters. What’s more, progressives would have something to build on at the next election. STV makes it possible to break the two-party duopoly. If the Democrats don’t address their liberal voters then someone else will. STV empowers voters because it undermines the “least worst option” argument.
What’s sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. I used the example of Nader but I could just as easily have chosen a non-Republican conservative. Someone on the right who disagrees with some of Bush’s policies, Pat Buchanan for example, would also be empowered by this system. By voting Buchanan1 and Bush 2, disgruntled conservatives could express their unhappiness with the current administration without actively helping to elect a Democrat.
Adopting STV would open up American politics by giving political oxygen to tendencies outside of the mainstream. Choice, isn’t that what democracy is all about?