It’s not true. The Republicans were never anything like any of the third parties we have now, because the Republicans were never on the outside looking in at the two-party system. Instead, one of the existing two major parties—the Whigs—collapsed due to an internal schism over the issue of slavery. Then, one of the factions met up and re-named themselves the Republicans. But the people involved were the same people, the same politicians! And a lot of them went straight from being elected Whigs to being elected Republicans!

(Although some of them, fed up with the squabbling, left a few years before the dramatic collapse, and had to be coaxed back later.)

That’s completely different then any group of out-of-power citizens trying to build an organization up from the ground floor to challenge the two near-indomitable incumbents. Remember, it is a two-party system. The only road to success for a third party (other than a fundamental voting system change such as approval voting or score voting) is for one of the two major parties to collapse; which has only ever happened in American history because of internal disagreements, never because of an assault from the outside… .

My point is that the politicians who ran as Republicans in 1854 were predominantly the same politicians who ran as Whigs in 1852 (the ones who continued to run as Whigs were predominantly in the south, as the Republicans were a decidedly northern party).

To those with lofty goals of getting a third party under plurality: Think Again.

Friedman has no clue what he’s talking about here.  He “knows” of groups trying to start up a third party?  The people can overcome a two party duopoly?  Give me a break.  There are an enormous number of reasons Friedman is wrong.  I’ll give you three.

1. Friedman Forgets Ballot Access

The US has an enormous number of restrictive ballot access laws to make it a pain in the ass just to get your name on the ticket.  Established republicans and democrats breeze on and get to their campaigning.  But independents and third parties have to collect enormous numbers of signatures.  Even then, they have to get double to triple the number because the duopoly parties challenge all those signatures for bullshit reasons (ex// signature is too sloppy, the person moved within the district, Jon instead of Jonathan, someone wrote on the wrong part of the form, so the whole form gets thrown out).

And everyone should get it out of their minds that less restrictive ballot access laws leads to a crowded ballot.  No one has this problem.  One can clearly balance between setting a fee too low versus requiring tens of thousands of signatures.  If no one else is on the ballot, it’s clearly too restrictive and democracy suffers from lack of competition.  See Grand Illusion, by Theresa Amato for more on this issue.

2. Friedman Gets Glossy on Duverger’s Law

Duverger’s Law explains that alternate parties have a tough time getting in when single-seat districts are used.  That’s because the threshold needed to get elected is high, and there’s a psychological barrier for fear of throwing away one’s vote.  Amazingly, Friedman talks about a third party revolution without ever mentioning proportional representation (PR) (ex// 25% libertarian voters; libertarians get 25% of the seats).  When you have large chambers you can use an open party-list system so you choose a party and then you select a candidate within that party. That’s the typical PR setup.

You can also separate large bodies into at-large PR districts of seats from 5-10.  This makes gerrymandering virtually impossible because PR systems set the threshold much lower to get elected and it’s harder to use those gerrymander tactics (ex// splitting groups or packing large groups).  Typical systems for this are the semi-proportional called cumulative voting.  This is when you have a number of votes equal to the number of seats and you can stack your votes on candidates.  This system is not uncommon in the US as a semi-PR system.

Another type of PR system with small districts is called Choice Voting or Single Transferable Vote.  You get to rank your candidates here so it’s more expressive.  This system deals well with overflow votes for a candidate and for minimizing wasted votes.  This system was used in many large US cities including New York and Cincinnati before racism and Red Scare tactics got it removed.  Party bosses were upset that they were being challenged and minorities were getting elected, so they pushed out propaganda campaigns.  See here for the story of PR in the US and here for the best book on PR systems.

You can compare a PR system with how we typically deal with such bodies.  We in the US either (1) take what should be an at-large body and instead put them in single-seat districts asking for gerrymandering and lack of representation, or (2) we use at-large districts but use multi-member plurality (MMP).  With MMP you get the number of votes equal to the number of candidates and you can’t stack votes on candidates.  This means a 51% majority block can determine ALL the seats and minorities get zero representation and showed up to vote for nothing.

3. Friedman Isn’t Up On His Single-Seat Voting Theory

Some positions are inherently single-seat like governor, mayor, and president.  You can’t use a PR system for that, so you’re stuck using a single-seat system.  But then we get a man named Kenneth Arrow knocking at our door telling us about his Impossibility Theorem.  His theorem tells you that no voting system can abide by a set of simple rules. 

But wait!  His theorem only applies to ranking systems, which includes plurality (our current inexpressive system of pick one and shut the hell up). It excludes an entire class of single-seat systems called a cardinal system. Two systems fall within this.  They are approval voting and range voting.  What do these systems have in common?  They are both the only systems to be immune from vote splitting and always allow the voter to be able to vote their honest favorite regardless of the standings in the election.

In approval voting, you vote for all the candidates you like.  Most votes wins.  That’s it.  This one is super easy and far more expressive than plurality.

In range voting, you rate all the candidates on a scale (say 1-10).  And the candidate with the highest rating wins.  Blanks are generally treated as the lowest score, though there are variations using a quorum rule.  This is the most expressive form of voting ever invented.  The downside is there’s a bit more information to enter and it’s slightly more complicated than plurality.  On the upside it’s much easier and more accurate than poor alternatives like instant runoff voting.

You can learn more about single-seat systems by visiting RangeVoting.org or reading Gaming the Vote.

In summary, Friedman had no idea what he was talking about.  But third parties in the US is not completely quixotic.  Sane ballot access laws, PR systems, and using a single-seat method as simple as approval voting will get you there.  History tells us the best way to accomplish this kind of reform is through ballot initiatives.  And we can’t forget—voting systems influence not only the outcome, but also the behavior of the election itself.  That is, it influences who gets heard and the issues that are talked about.  It’s a lot easier to ignore other views when there’s no competition and people are afraid of wasting their vote.  And that’s exactly our system with awful plurality.

(Source: politiblog)