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A Vote Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
“But I don’t want to waste my vote.” This retort came from both my wife’s mother and my father in separate conversations as they lamented their options served up this year by the Republicans and Democrats but refused to consider a third party candidate. Even when we pointed out that as former two-term governors Gary Johnson and Bill Weld are not only more qualified to serve as president, but that their actions more closely match our parents’ values, they resisted on the grounds they won’t win.
Wikipedia defines a “wasted vote” as “any vote which is not for an elected candidate or, more broadly, a vote that does not help to elect a candidate.” I note that no citations are provided for this definition, probably because nobody will admit to writing that a wasted vote is simply a vote for a losing candidate. Strictly by the numbers, every vote has a vanishingly small impact. The average voter in a presidential election has lottery-ish odds of one in 60 million (1/60,000,000) of casting the deciding ballot in a presidential election. Playing the lottery is a waste of money, but surely there is something more to voting than getting your candidate in office.
It can be hard to pick the winning side when one casts a ballot. Right up to the Brexit vote most of the analysts, the polls, and perhaps most credibly, the gamblers, thought that Britain would vote against exiting the European Union. A vote for Harry Truman was a “wasted vote” in 1948. Even Ronald Reagan was behind in the polls for most of the year before the 1980 election.
Even if a cause is lost in one election, it may be won in the next election or years later. A “wasted” vote for the Republicans in 1856 led to the elimination of slavery, and the new party dominated American politics until 1932. A vote for Barry Goldwater in 1964 did not pay off until 1980. The media did it’s best to demonize and marginalize Reagan in those years as a racist warmonger who wanted to take away your grandma’s social security. But the stance taken by Goldwater generally and Reagan in his “Time for Choosing” speech took hold in the public imagination until it was finally able to express itself in a cascade of votes in 1980 and 1984. Bill Clinton’s insincere “the Era of Big Government Is Over” speech in 1994 is surely a grudging homage to Goldwater’s quixotic 1964 campaign.
Voting can pay off, even if your candidate or party never wins. Ross Perot ran unsuccessfully for president in 1992 and 1996 and his Reform Party’s only win was Jesse Ventura’s election as Minnesota governor. Perot’s big issue was the national debt (when it was four trillion dollars). Remember the charts? The major parties took notice of those so-called “wasted” Perot votes. The Republican congress deftly co-opted the issue and became the party of fiscal responsibility, passing multiple balanced budgets and actually getting Bill Clinton to sign them.
If you still are not convinced, just follow the money. Nearly a billion dollars has been spent on the Presidential election so far. Some estimates are as high as five billion for the 2016 election.
“Some things are up to us and other things are not up to us,” the Greco-Roman philosopher Epictetus wrote nearly 2,000 years ago. He taught that valuing things that are not up to us brings frustration, anxiety, and disappointment. Valuing what is up to us brings tranquility. Our opinions, choices, actions, and votes are our own. Don’t sacrifice your tranquility by not choosing the candidate most closely aligned with your values.
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Eh, what the heck, I’ll respond to the earlier part of the post.
This is true. Call it claim A.
This is untrue, because of claim A. In both cases, there was a result that was perceived as more likely, but not certain, before the election. It is not a wasted vote to support something that you’d like to happen, but that is likely not to happen or that you’d like to happen and that is only likely to happen. Indeed, that is pretty close to my definition of a useful vote. I do not believe that there is an example of a more useful vote, with the exception of a vote in which one knows that one’s position will be decisive.
This is sort of true. He was behind at the beginning of the year, but pulled equal in the Summer and stayed there for the rest of the year, sometimes up and sometimes down, but with the only landslide result coming from a poll showing him ahead.
It is not the case, though, that this is a justification for voting for a third party. If I cannot be certain whether my wife will prefer it if I leave her violets or petunias when I head off on a business trip, it does not stand to reason that it might be wise for me to leave her a turd in a vase. Just because it is not clear if X or Y is the plausible outcome does not make option Z plausible.
This is a greatly superior argument to the LP’s constant and constantly dishonest claim that Linconl ran for President on a third party ticket. The Republican Party was not a third party in 1856 either, though. In January 1856 there were 15 Republicans in the Senate, making it the second largest party (in the 56 occupied seats there were 34 Democrats; the third party was the Whigs, with 3 seats). Over in the House, Republicans held much closer to half the seats, with the American Party being the much smaller third party and the Whigs holding no seats.
Well, perhaps, as regards what follows from the first sentence, but it seems unlikely that the Time for Choosing speech was successful because of the volume of general election support that followed it. Reagan’s organizing effort was not in vain, but the votes cast probably were. In November, Goldwater wasn’t Gary Johnson level certain to lose, but voters had an unusually weak basis for hoping.
Does it also seem obvious that he chose 1990 rather than 2010 because he’s cherry picking his data?
One could argue, as you did, that the Greens bearly spoiled the 2000 election. It was so close in fact, and the Greens’ support so small in the key state, that one could easily conclude that it’s not worth including the Greens in Democratic politics because the chances of them doing that again was sufficiently small.
One could argue that the Libertarians spoiled the Minnesota election, but one election in one state, even if pivitol, does not seem sufficient to worry about the Libertarians doing that on a regular basis. If there was two elections where the Libertarians were pulling double digits, that could be another story.
I don’t know how to interpret the Ross Perot effect because to me he was a Trump-like manifestation. When I read about his policy positions, I couldn’t find one I really agreed with. He seemed like an anti-libertarian in many ways, but he tilted the election to Clinton, who then went on to make some of the biggest strides in the free market direction(?) Strange…
Does SMOD care if he is not on the ballot? I think not, and when he makes his impact neither will the rest of us….
Sweet Sweet SMOD. :)
The Democrats didn’t merely remain unchanged in their environmental focus. Never again have they run a candidate as supportive of Nader’s positions as Gore was. Greens were not just not welcomed into the Democratic Party at high levels, they were despised and Green supporting activists became less important as a result of their terrible decision (the barely swung election was swung 100%).
Sadly, the LP does do this on a pretty regular basis. Virginia’s gubernatorial race, and Mia Love’s Congressional race are two of the higher profile recent examples (Love was only excluded from Congress for one term, but still). Virginia, in particular, is a pretty big deal.
I should note that it is very unlikely that Perot was decisive in 1992 or 1996. In 1992, Clinton almost certainly had Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas, and it’s very difficult indeed to draw a map using the 1992 electoral vote numbers that allows a Republican to win Clinton made big strides in a free market direction, but most of the groundwork for those strides was laid by Bush. Bush negotiated the NAFTA to the point of its signature. Clinton got it passed by dragging it to the left a little, which was definitely the opposite of what Perot wanted, but it’s not an example of Clinton being more free market than Bush. Welfare reform was created in Wisconsin by Tommy Thompson working with Bush to craft a new system that turned out to work incredibly well, both politically and practically (it needed a lot of waivers). The 1993 OBRA was a cut down version of Bush’s 1990 OBRA.
Perot’s big issues were term limits, which died in 1995 thanks to a 6-3 Court decision that depended on two Clinton appointees, opposition to tax hikes, which Clinton passed, opposition to NAFTA, which Clinton got ratified, and personal dislike of Bush.
To be fair, he was pretty successful on that last one. On a similar basis, Bill Weld running as a friend of Clinton who really, truly, hates Trump strikes me as having a sound basis for running that is not at all irrational. If you agree with him, though, it seems irrational to vote for him rather than for Clinton.
Beautifully said. Thank you for saying it.
And for those who are going to ask, I think Hillary is the less dangerous of the two vile, loathsome, totally unfit major party candidates. So I’m not in the least conflicted over not voting for the Orange One. We (classical liberals) lost this election when the Republican party nominated him.
I’m going to leave now and leave you all to Jame’s hectoring. We know how he loves this subject. :)
Complete aside— love the typo. On another thread, someone referred to Obama as a president of African dissent; am I the only one charmed by these? (Or did you do it on purpose, Mike? Like that, too.)
Great conversation, BTW. Y’all are the acne of perfection.
Hillary Clinton. Obama will lie mendaciously and insidiously bend the power of government to partisan ends for progressivism. Hillary Clinton will do the same things but to benefit her so she will be more moderate than Obama. I also think her foreign policy is better imo.
With each election cycle, the wastefulness of my vote increases. It is directly proportional to the lousiness of the candidates. It’s taken a giant leap this year.
I would call your mother-in-law and your father wise. Wisdom is difficult to acquire without age and experience. Knowledge of history helps, too.
THAT I did not know….
Michael Walsh says people under 50 don’t understand what conservative principles really are, and if you think there will be a chance to return to them after 4-8 years of Hillary, you’re very wrong. It will be over.
http://amgreatness.com/2016/08/30/conservative-kids-squandering-political-inheritance-michael-walsh-podcast/
Nothing else to say, PH. Irrefutable. Thanks.
If this is true – one must pass 50 before understanding – conservatism has an intrinsic demographic problem. What should be done about it?
Why certainly there is; there’s self-righteous preening and the attendant courage necessary to brave breaking your arm patting yourself on the back.
It’s all about your standards and being able to hold your head high when the razzing by the Left kicks in.
“No,’ you can proudly say. “I did not vote for that boorish and crude man. He doesn’t represent me or my values. Furthermore, the fact that Hillary has packed the SCOTUS with three young ultra-Leftist can’t be laid at my feet. I removed myself from the whole dirty business. I washed my hands of it, I am innocent of all resulting horrors. Trump primary voters shall bear responsibility.”
And so saying, ̶P̶i̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ Purity Conservative stepped down from the podium and prostrated himself. “What in God’s name have I done in my stiff-necked pride!” He cried aloud.