Yes, There Are Other Options

Let's stay mostly topical today. Politics. Elections. Votes. If you know me, maybe you know that after the 2004 election I enacted a boycott against both of the two major parties in the US, vowing never to vote for a member of either one again.(1) The reasons for this boycott, or more specifically for this extreme distaste for the major parties that precipitated their boycott, are somewhat lengthy and complex, such that I'd rather not partake in the argument now. Another time, I promise. Suffice to say that I'd much prefer a political environment where many different ideas or platforms have room to be taken seriously, and where people don't have to compromise their beliefs in order to fit into one party or the other.
Of course what I'm talking about is being elected, since any person can support any other person or belief, but it's a very different thing to have actually hope that their candidate has a chance to get elected. A member of a third party could never get elected to national office in this country as it's currently operated. The two major parties are simply too rich and powerful, suffocating any possibility for another voice. The only option is to change the election system.
The US currently uses a plurality voting system(2), which just means that the most votes win, no many how small a percentage that person has. I encourage you to read up on it yourself, but trust me that this system inevitably leads to the two-party system. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem: negative votes. It's called a balanced plurality system and it's actively and thoughtfully proposed by someone named Donald Kronos.(3)
If we can vote for someone, why can't we vote against someone? It's so simple and obvious. More importantly, it much more accurately reflects a voter's intent, which is really the whole point of getting off your ass and voting in the first place.
Take 2004 for instance. Many people did not like George Bush. Many. Many people also did not like John Kerry, but were forced to vote for him as their only chance to speak their opinion about Mr Bush. So in this particular election, you could say that a lot of independent voters cast votes for the Democrat when really they were just voting against the Republican. After time this dissatisfaction would manifest itself in more varied parties winning more and more votes, until ideally anyone would have a chance.(4)
A side thought on this: imagine the possible effects of negative voting if it were enacted for the first time in 2004. Presumably Bush would have had almost as many negative votes as positive--totaling millions of each--while Kerry would have likely garnered slightly more positive than negative, though with ridiculously fewer votes in both column. Let's play with this example:
In 2004, a total of 121,069,054 votes were cast for either Bush or Kerry, 62,040,610 for Bush, 59,028,444. Let's assume that of Bush's 62M, 38M were actually "pro" votes, while 12M were "anti" -Kerry votes, with 12M belonging to independent or 3rd-party sympathizers drawn in by the close race. Similarly, we'll assume that of Kerry's 59M, 9M were pro votes while 40M were anti-Bush, with 10M others. This is very rough, but it covers the national consensus somewhat at least. What we're left with is Bush at -2,000,000, Kerry at -3,000,000, and 22,000,000 votes that would have been spread around amongst the smaller party candidates. The highest-polling of these was Ralph Nader at close to half a million votes. But that's positive votes, so theoretically he would be our winner, depending on how those 22,000,000 people decided to cast their ballots. Amazing.
This is no personal reflection on everyone's favorite consumer advocate(5), but that result sounds better to me.


(1) Technically, this boycott was broken when I voted for the "Republican" Michael Bloomberg for mayor of New York in 2005. Mr Bloomberg switching to Independent in 2007 merely made official what was quite obvious for the duration of his public life as a "Republican." I say I keep my honor.
(2) Go ahead and wikipedia that, I did when I was curious about different electoral processes. You would be amazed at how many different ways there are to choose a government. Not just half-baked systems either, as many countries (democracies of course, big ones too--Germany) use completely different systems than we do.
(3) See his full blog for multiple variations on the balanced plurality theme. He has a three-step proposal: negative votes, multi-stage voting, and split votes, but I prefer the first and simplest of those described on its own here.
(4) Lookup "feedback" to understand this differently. Basically, the results of one election will directly influence the voting behavior in the next, and so on. This results in the consolidation of power in two major parties. It's why the Democrats, and not some third party, are now in power after general dissatisfaction with the Republicans the last few years, and why the Republicans took power in 1994 after the Democrats were turned out, and on and on through history.
(5) Sometimes you just have to love the guy though: when asked about possibly spoiling a Democratic victory in 2008: "Not a chance. If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, and emerge in a different form." Couldn't agree more.