Do you really believe your candidate can't win?
Back in January of this year, I resolved that election politics would not take my dignity or my reason.
So far, so good. That’s one New
Year’s resolution kept.
This election “silly season” makes it hard, I must admit, but
I am going to try to be rational, so please read on…
I remember being told in my 8th grade civics
class—I know; I am showing my age—that the United States has a “two-party”
system of government. We constantly hear
about the need for “bi-partisan” action.
We have NEVER had a two party system. In fact, political parties are not mentioned
anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. You
would never know that if you only consider the stuff put out by the mainstream
media, newspapers, radio pundits, and even the supposedly neutral polls that
routinely do not offer alternative candidates to the Democrats’ and
Republicans’.
The media wisdom, if you can call it that, is that a third
party candidate “can’t win”, that if you vote for one, your vote is “wasted”.
Does the same apply if you vote for one of the two “regular” candidates and
they lose? Was your vote a waste? A
thoughtful vote based on principle is never, ever, a waste. You do have a choice.
Let me carry this one step farther, and perhaps you will see
that logically, mathematically, a third party vote is not necessarily a waste.
The Constitution describes how the President is elected.
He/she is not elected directly by popular vote and contrary to popular opinion
(just ask Al Gore). The President is
elected by the Electoral College. The
number of state electors is defined in the Constitution as being the number of
their congressional representatives, including their two senators. That total is 538 members at this
point.
Now, let’s consider an election in which there were four candidates on the ballot.
Let’s say that the Republican, Democrat, Green and Libertarian
candidates each get an unlikely, but possible, equal share of those
electors, because their supporters did not buy the idea that their candidate can't win. That means that each candidate
would get 134 electors, with two more in the offing.
The Constitution, in Article 2, Section 1, states that the
candidate who receives a majority of the electors becomes President. Not a “super majority” or any such rubbish,
nor a plurality or any other word we use to describe a proportion of
votes. A majority is the candidate who
gets one more vote than the others.
In my admittedly highly unlikely, but possible, scenario,
the candidate who got that extra 2 votes would become President with 136
votes.
I know that I am simplifying things. There is a little more to the process, I know.
Now, allow me to point out that
the establishment parties both regard states strategically, concentrating
resources on states that have more electors, so they already grasp the
significance of what I am going to say.
Florida has 29 electors.
California 55. My state of
Pennsylvania has 20. New York has 29, and Texas 38. That is 5 states, for a total of 171 electors. Just five states. The winner in my scenario only needs 136
So, in the same scenario, let’s say that the third party wins Texas (38), Ohio
(18), Pennsylvania (20), Illinois (20),
Michigan (16), Arizona (11) New Mexico (5), and Wyoming (3) and Louisiana (8) for
a total of 139. Just 9 states.
Back to the notion that a third party candidate “can’t win”
and that a vote for them is “wasted." Do you still think so? If so,
then I respect your right to an opinion and am grateful for your attention to
mine. I wish you all the blessings that Liberty allows.
Now, for those of you who are now questioning what the political
establishment and media would have you believe, here are a couple websites to
visit before you settle for a Democrat or a Republican.
For more info on Libertarian Gary Johnson, https://www.lp.org/
For more on Green Party candidate Jill Stein, http://www.gp.org/
Those are announced candidates. Write-ins are always
possible, so Bernie Sanders’ supporters might consider just that. Visit https://go.berniesanders.com/page/content/splash
A thoughtful, reasoned, and above all informed vote, cast in
line with one’s beliefs and principles is never, ever, wasted, no matter what
Clinton’s or Trump’s acolytes may say, no matter what the media “reports”.
A vote not cast, however, is a waste.
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