Why can’t we vote third party? If enough of us vote for a third-party candidate, they win, right?
And that’s a genuine question. You would think that in an election, the person with the most votes wins; that’s simple. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Hillary Clinton. She won the popular vote in 2016. She got over 2 million more votes than Donald Trump but still lost because of the electoral college.
The Electoral College
The Electoral College is a system used in the United States for electing the president and vice president.
It consists of 538 electors, reflecting the total number of members in Congress (435) Representatives, 100 Senators) plus three electors for the District of Columbia.
Each state’s electors equals its total number of members in Congress.
When citizens vote in a presidential election, they vote for a slate of electors pledged to a candidate. These electors then formally vote for the president and vice president.
A candidate needs a majority of electoral votes (at least 270) to win the election.
This system can result in a candidate winning the Electoral College and, thus, the presidency while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide.
In 1992, we saw our most successful third-party candidate, Ross Perot, get nearly 20 million votes, and Bill Clinton won with about 44 million votes.
So, how many electoral college votes did Ross get? Zero, not one. He’s your third-party candidate in this one.
He had about half of George Bush’s votes, and Bush had 168 electoral college votes. Nothing for Perot. That’s the problem. That’s why we can’t vote third party.
This is why third-party candidates fail. It’s not because enough people aren’t voting for them. The system does not allow third-party candidates to get anywhere.
Ranked Choice Voting
Ranked choice voting (RCV) is an electoral system where voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than voting for a single candidate. Here’s how it works:
- Voting: Voters rank candidates on their ballot in order of preference (first choice, second choice, and so on).
- Counting First Choices: Initially, only the first-choice votes are counted. If a candidate receives a majority (more than 50%) of these votes, they win outright.
- Eliminating Lowest-Ranked Candidates: If no candidate wins a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated.
- Redistributing Votes: The eliminated candidate’s votes are then redistributed to the remaining candidates based on the second-choice preferences indicated on those ballots.
- Repeating the Process: This process of eliminating the lowest-ranked candidate and redistributing their votes continues until a candidate secures a majority.
RCV aims to ensure that the elected candidate has a broad support base and can more represent the electorate’s preferences. It also reduces the impact of “vote splitting,” where similar candidates split the vote, allowing a less popular candidate to win.
We must abolish the Electoral College and implement Ranked ranked-choice voting to escape this two-party system and forget about the vote third party.