Progressives within the Democratic Party are about to be called "spoilers"

I've seen variation of an argument recently on social media that came out today as this NBC article: "Democrats are having a banner recruiting year -- and it could cost them". The article essentially makes the case that, because there are in some districts a large number of people running as Democrats, that it could "cost" the party. They specifically cite California and it's "top two" laws, that basically requires the top two candidates to go into a run-off even if they are the same party. The article argues that the large number of Democrats will split the vote in the primaries and allow the top two candidates in the general to be Republican candidates.

In fact, the article says:

But crowded primaries can also waste money, sow internal divisions, push candidates to the ideological extremes, and tarnish whoever emerges from the melee.

It goes on to say:

Republicans are counting on overcrowded Democratic races to help bail them out of what is shaping up to be a very bad year. 

"We look forward to facing whoever limps out of the Democrats' battle royale: black and blue, and broke," said National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Steve Stivers. 

One GOP super PAC is even considering meddling in Democratic races to sow chaos and promote weaker opponents. "It'd be too much not to," said Cory Bliss, the executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund. 

It cites the example from California again, that the state party has thrown its weight behind the candidate from last election, Doug Applegate, and is calling on challengers to drop out and support him, even though Applegate has been accused of scandal is not necessarily looking like a strong candidate. Regardless, the fact that the candidate and party are trying to pressure challengers out of the primaries -- the elections that are supposed to choose the candidate for the party, rather than allowing party elite to decide! -- shows that Democrats have not learned a thing since 2016.

This is exactly the arguments we saw as the Clinton wing of the Democratic party put pressure on Bernie Sanders and his supporters to drop out and fall in line behind Clinton. The "split the vote" argument is also exactly the reason they give for why voting for the Greens is a "waste".

Mark my words: the Democratic party is about to launch a campaign against progressive/socialist challengers, calling them "spoilers" and "weaker candidates propped up by GOP". This is all scare tactics to try to get people to fall back in line with the corporate "centrist" Democrats whom they will claim are "stronger" candidates that can "reach out to republican voters with bipartisanship".

The Democratic party could be working to fix this. Since the primaries are completely party-controlled, the DNC could do a simple vote and switch to ranked choice voting and make the "spoiler" argument completely obsolete. They could use ranked choice to find the candidate that is actually the most preferred by the most voters (open primaries would be even better at this!), rather than the establishment-backed flawed winning candidate of a plurality vote. And yet, they don't. I haven't heard a peep about ranked choice, and in fact, establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle are fighting ranked choice implementation in Maine after voters chose last year to switch to ranked choice. This might have something to do with how a number of Democratic state representatives in Maine have broken off and become Greens, and the Green Party is rapidly growing there. People are sick of establishment politics.

Democrats don't want ranked choice -- in the general election or even the primaries -- because they can use plurality voting and the "spoiler" argument and the "weaker candidate" argument as a stick to beat back opposition. They prey on the politics of fear, counting on you to ultimately side with their establishment pick out of fear that a worse candidate from the Republicans could ultimately win. They make this argument every election, and despite their corporate candidates typically winning primaries, they still go on to lose the general election. But instead of asking how their strategy can change to win over more voters, they still blame progressives and Greens for those losses. Despite the huge losses to the GOP and Trump in 2016, Democrats are continuing with their same policies, because why not, it has worked in the past. They are anticipating riding an anti-Trump wave to victory and have no need to appeal to progressives. They will use 2018 as an opportunity to try to crush the progressive "rebellion".

We need to move beyond the two-party narrative about how we vote. They use our voting methods to bash not only third party movements like the Greens, but even progressive challengers within the party.

Our energy is not well directed at "invading" the Democratic party, however. The primaries are not "official" elections, in the sense that they are party nomination procedures. Parties, as private organizations, can nominate however they want. Look at how much the Unity Reform Commission is struggling to get support to pass their small reforms that are much less than what progressives were originally asking for. There is huge momentum within the party to fight change. So to get the change you seek, you must take over nearly all local and state parties, with the end result being you get to maybe set some internal policy. None of that work is helping making fairer elections for our fellow Americans in the Republican, Green, Libertarian parties, or independent voters. (Remember that Trump won a lot of the early primaries with only something like 20% or 30% of the vote -- a landslide of Republicans did NOT want him and voted for someone else, yet he won -- ranked choice in the Republican primaries could have stopped Trump, and yet no one talks about that). Even if the Democratic party becomes more "progressive", we're still operating within a two party system that shuts out voices and opposition. We need to do better than this.

What we can do is change our laws for the general election. We can fight for a more fair system for all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, and make it easier for everyone to vote. While this is also an uphill battle, this is a battle for what's right, for making our system more democratic and fair to all, not just taking over a single party in a flawed two-party system. When we win this, we're not simply propping up a private organization with control over our elections process, we win and spread democratic reform for all Americans. This is what Greens stand for. We want proportional representation and ranked choice, we want voting holidays, we want equal access to debates and the airwaves, we want automatic voter registration and open primaries, we want verifiable voting methods instead of electronic machines we can't trust. These are things that are good for every voter and every party, and yet the two major parties never talk about any of this. And it's very clear why: they want to retain the control over our elections process, rather than opening it up to everyone with methods like proportional representation. Private organizations should NOT control our elections.

If you're sick of Democrats using the "spoiler" stick every election, please consider joining the Greens and helping us grow a new major party and change our election system.

The STV proportional representation voting method

In the last post, I described the need for proportional representation to establish a more democratic and fair system for electing our representatives. I originally began thinking of the topic when I recently was browsing in the library and came across a short book entitled "Proportional Representation: The Key to Democracy" by George H. Hallett, Jr. The book was originally published in 1937, and is a short read at just a touch over 100 pages (on small size paper, so could be easily read in an afternoon).

What caught my interest was that there were several books in the library around that time period advocating for PR, and while casually flipping through the book, I saw references to the fact that cities like Cincinnati were using PR at the time. Is that still true today?, I thought. (Incidentally, Cincinnati used PR from 1925 until 1957; there have been attempts to bring it back since then that have lost by very close margins). FairVote actually provides an excellent brief history of proportional representation, which helps answer those questions. I'll provide some of those responses below, which actually echo most of Hallet's arguments for PR.

So I spent the last post talking about the high-levels of why we needed PR. Today, I thought I'd go through Hallet's small book and discuss exactly what STV PR is, and list the advantages and arguments for PR that it lists. I think all of them are good arguments just as applicable today as back then, and considering the book's age, I feel like it is worthwhile documenting older texts before they are lost to history.

First, the single transferrable vote (STV) method of proportional representation is a very straightforward name for the process. Voters are presented with the entire list of all candidates, and voters choose the candidate that they feel best represents them. As we will see, STV does away with the need for primaries, so voters can select from all available candidates and not just the single nominees of each party. However, unlikely plurality voting, voters can choose to rank the candidates in order from who is the first choice for their vote down to last choice. Voters are not required to rank all candidates; voters can pick only their top two favorites, or four, or any possibility. Voters therefore only vote for candidates they find acceptable, and are not required to pick any candidate they do not want.

When the votes are counted to determine the winners, we follow slightly different practices. A few alternatives exist, all roughly the same, so I'll explain the one that seems most common. The city sets a threshold for the number of votes needed to win a seat on the legislative body (city or county council, etc.). It might be say 1500 votes, or more, depending on the population of the city; the board of elections would set this number in advance. This means that ANY candidate that receives at least 1500 votes is on the council; the number of seats is therefore dynamic and depends on how many people turn out to vote. As the population for the city grows and more voters turn out, the council will automatically be expanded to ensure proper representation of all groups in the city. If population goes down and there are less candidates, the size of the council adjusts downward as well. (An alternative is to set a constant number of members on the council, and adjust the winning threshold based on the voter turnout, but I personally like the variable council size method better).

The tallying of votes is where the process is most significantly different. The votes are counted and sorted based on their rankings. First, everyone's first choice is counted and tallied. If there are any candidates that receive over the threshold (say, over 1500) votes, those candidates are declared immediate winners. Other candidates may not have received the full 1500, but are reasonably close. Other can be mathematically shown they will never win 1500 votes (because perhaps less than 1500 people chose that candidate in their rankings!). The candidates that cannot win are eliminated, and their votes are transferred to the second choice candidates. Simultaneously, candidates that received more than 1500 votes don't need more votes (they've already won! doesn't do any good to have more), so in order to try to balance out the minority votes from losing candidates, we also transfer the votes of the excess votes (over 1500) to the second choice candidates. In this way, both the majority and minority are represented and have their votes counted toward a candidate; no vote is wasted! We continue this process of transferring votes until there are no more candidates to transfer votes from. Then, ALL candidates over the threshold are winners. While slightly complicated in vote counting, the process is fairly intuitive and transparent (since the method of transferring votes can be calculated much like one balances a checkbook, anyone can confirm the arithmetic is correct) and ensures a council that represents the views of its citizens proportionally, ensuring everyone has a fair representation and a voice on the council.

This is only a brief overview of the method. We'll discuss how and why this works more as we review Hallet's arguments for PR below.

Specifically, Hallet points out the following advantages of STV PR:

• Effective voting, meaning that nearly everyone that votes will have at least someone from their list chosen to represent them. Even if it is not their top choice, nearly everyone will have their number two or three elected, and so most voters will feel comfortable with the results.
• Unanimous constituencies, meaning each representative is elected from a block of voters that agree on some issue and not simply voters that live in the same ward (as we do with our current single-member districts). Representatives can focus on issues that get them elected and not "straddling the line" in a district (in other words, the typical "I'm a centrist" that stands for nothing so as not to offend and get elected, as we hear today).
• Minority representation, meaning voters group themselves into minority "parties" based on important issues and can elect a representative even with a small group. They get some small representation rather than never having a voice in government under single-member districts and a two-party system. These minority groups can be "single issue" parties that feel shut out by the major parties, for example, by focusing things like fracking or single payer healthcare.
• Majority rule, meaning that while minority groups are represented, no minority group can force through their agenda without building a majority coalition with the other elected representatives that were elected on perhaps other issues. Most decisions made by the group will represent the will of the majority, whereas under single-member districting and two-party rule it is easy for a larger minority to take complete control despite up to half of voters completely disagreeing with the proposal. See Pennsylvania, where a majority of voters voted for Democratic candidates and yet Republicans control the state assembly with a 60% supermajority.
• New freedom in voting, meaning voters can worry less about "tactical voting" and vote for the candidate(s) and platform(s) they truly believe in. There is no concern about splitting the vote; one can rest safely knowing that if the first choice cannot win, the vote will be transferred to a second preferred choice rather than the last hated choice.
• A check to machine rule, meaning that the freedom to vote for any candidate typically means voters choose better candidates rather than settling on the establishment "political machine" candidates. It becomes harder for establishment candidates to win unless they truly represent the interests of the people, which leads to the next point.
• The transformation of machines, meaning that establishment political parties must bend their will to the will of the people and support popular policy or they won't be elected. There cannot be a lesser evil argument when your votes can be transferred. Establishment must adopt popular policy or will lose to another group that does.
• The gerrymander killed, since PR is applied to entire municipalities or to large permanent "super-districts", which completely kills the need for re-districting and hence partisan re-districting ("gerrymandering").
• A solution for reapportionment, making it easy to vary the number of representatives in the legislative body by simply requiring one representative for every set number of votes (for example, 75,000 votes). In this way, the number of representatives changes with the population automatically each election, and there is no need for reapportionment and re-districting after each census as we do now.
• Continuity, meaning that PR prevents sudden "landslides" that can push a minority into majority rule as under our current system. PR simply increases or decreases representation proportional to the votes, and popular leaders will remain elected, with only the unpopular ones losing their seats. Going from 49% of the vote to 51% means only an extra seat or two in PR, with each side retaining roughly equal control, while under plurality might mean the difference between total defeat or total victory.
• The development of leadership, allowing representatives to be independent leaders rather than "rubber stamp" the political party's goals. The party cannot threaten "losing endorsement" and ballot access, as happens under today's system. Anyone can be on the ballot regardless of party endorsement and still win, since voters can choose the best platform and not simply tactical voting.
• Development of interest, meaning that as the conversation changes from "lesser evil" to choosing the best platform, more voters will become interested in politics and elections and join the conversation. Many voters are today turned off by the angry discourse that results from a two-party system that pushes voting for a "lesser evil" that is still unacceptable. Why participate in a system where all of your options are ones you hate? With better options, we see more civic engagement, which is good for democracy.
• Reduction of fraud, as one would need to stuff a ballot with A LOT of votes under a PR system to get all of the candidates you want elected, and such a massive "landslide" would be immediately suspicious and investigated. There's less payoff for small fraud under PR, so less will even bother to attempt it.
• Elimination of primaries, since voters can simply pick their favorite candidates at once and have their votes transferred. There is no need to hold a separate, expensive election just for party nominees, especially when such primaries operate under party rules and can be manipulated. Parties are free to endorse as many candidates in the election as they wish, but they cannot prevent candidates from appearing on the general election ballot as they do with primaries.
• Cooperation and good feeling, since all of the above reasons contribute to campaigns focused on issues rather than simply attacking and trying to beat a particular candidate. Talking about issues wins votes as people find they agree with your platform, but there is little advantage to attacking an opponent when it might alienate voters and they'll simply pick some instead of you or the opponent.

Anticipating questions and retorts, Hallet's book provides a chapter on answers to common objections to PR:

• Does PR promote racial and religious blocs? While some voters may vote strictly along racial, religious, or other lines, most voters focus on issues important to them. Should some voters stick to small groups, even then the proportionality of PR means that they would not get a majority of elected officials and would not be able to pass legislation on their own if they are too radical. The book points out Cincinnati and other cities that used PR in the early 1900s held several successful elections and never saw evidence of this happening.
• Does PR deprive localities of representation? If we don't have districts, do the representatives really represent each neighborhood or locality? This is sort of the inverse question of promoting blocs as above, and has a similar answer. In order for each locality to NOT be represented, a different locality would have to form a voting bloc and win more seats. Since the seats are chosen proportionally, it is very difficult to imagine any scenario where voters in a locality would rank candidates from other localities that did not have their best interests in mind above candidates from their own area. In practice, this issue was not seen either, since voters focused on issues which tended to benefit their locality or the entire area as a whole.
• Does PR help extremists? Some worry that extremist groups may win seats in PR. For example, a Nazi may try to win a seat. But this fear is again unfounded because of proportionality. A small extremist minority is unlikely to have votes to win even one seat, and even if they did, would not have majority rule to pass any extremist agenda. Any such risk under PR is overblown, as it is much easier for an extremist party to take advantage of our current system's unfair districts and two-party primary process to take majority rule. Consider that the "Tea Party" of 2009 was a very small group of Republicans but was able to target certain districts and win a large amount of seats in Congress, and influence the entire Republican party, whereas such a win would not have been possible under PR since the Tea Party was clearly not endorsed by a majority of Americans (or even a majority of Republicans). Tea Party would have at best won a couple seats in PR, not a takeover of party goals as was what happened under our current system. You need majority backing in PR to win a majority, but that's not true under the current system.
• Does PR increase the bargaining power of minorities? Certainly minorities would have representation in PR and so a bargain or compromise would sometimes be needed to win a majority vote, depending on the proportions involved. But again the issue is overblown, as any "risk" of needing to bargain with a minority is much less than our current system which can give minority parties outright control to do completely as they wish.
• Does PR make legislation harder? Since PR focuses on issues that affect the community, in most circumstances the representatives would all be focused on the same or similar issues affecting the whole community, and can make compromises to ensure it happens. Our current system focuses on winning elections only, leading to two major parties that constantly flip flop, getting nothing done. PR actually would make the system work more efficiently for things we all agree on instead of focusing on the "horse race" of who is "winning".
• Does PR break down one-party government? Effectively, PR allows for a one-party (effectively: no parties), two-party, or multi-party government, so if you feel on one side of spectrum or other, PR is neutral. PR chooses the best candidates based on the issues, and so will reflect the will of the people. If there are many important issues, there will be many parties. History has shown some cities to be satisfied with two parties, while others like New York saw a vibrant multiparty system form due to the large amount of issues for a city of such large size. It is up to the voters that live in the area to determine how best to structure politics, and PR works with any choice.
• Is PR hard to understand? For voters, it is easy to understand that you simply number the candidates in order from favorite to least favorite. The counting process is a little more complex, but most voters already don't know the process of handling votes under today's system, so not much would change in terms of what voters need to know. PR does open up the ability to monitor and challenge elections since the votes are centrally counted and the arithmetic easily verified, which would actually make elections more transparent than they are today.
• Does the PR count take too much time? People are used to hearing the preliminary results immediately on election night. PR would take a bit longer to go through and transfer votes to second choice, etc., but election workers can do this over the course of only a couple days. We can allow a day or two to ensure a correct count when we're choosing leaders for the next 2-4 years. And if you want a preliminary estimate, exit polls might help.
• Does PR lend itself to manipulation? Since PR requires several vote counts, during which we transfer votes from losing to winning candidates, the ballots will be counted several times by many poll workers with many poll watchers monitoring the entirely process. Thus, fraud and manipulation are actually harder to pull off and the system is much more transparent. More than worrying about PR or voting method, if we are concerned about manipulation, we should focus on electronic voting machines currently in use in Pennsylvania. Such machines have no audit trail and may be easily manipulated. We should use paper ballots with PR for maximum transparency.
• Does PR cost too much? While PR would likely require hiring extra workers to count votes in a timely manner, the cost is much less than the costs of a primary and a potential run-off vote. PR replaces the need for these extra elections since votes are transferred automatically during the count. The net cost historically has been much lower in cities that moved to PR.
• Does PR make the ballot too long? In most cases the ballot won't be too long because there is no need to artificial raise the number of candidates to "split the vote" as is sometimes done in today's primaries and general elections. Even if there are many candidates, voters need not rank EVERY candidate, but only their favorites or the ones they know well. Even if the ballot has 30 candidates, voters can rank their top 5. In practice in cities that moved to PR, this was not an issue.
• Does PR make it harder to know the candidates? While there are potentially more candidates, most voters will find it easier to learn about candidates and their choices. Under today's system, most voters are not sure which district they are in, and media (newspapers, etc.) tend to devote their resources to top races like mayor or governor and less resources to every small district. The effect being that many voters don't have any idea about who the candidates are in their local races. If there are no districts, coverage must be more fair for all candidates rather than only the larger races and districts, if for no other reason than any candidate a voter hears about is someone that the voter can choose (since districts no longer restrict choice).
• Does PR make campaigning harder? While it is true the campaign area can be larger since there are no more districts, the flip-side is that candidates are no longer competing for a majority of votes, just the amount of votes necessary to win a seat. Therefore candidates can customize their campaign to reach the constituency they want: focus on a certain neighborhood or group to win the voters needed or a seat. Campaigning in every neighborhood in the whole city is therefore not strictly required to win. Since PR removes the need for primaries, this also frees up more time and money for the general election.
• Does PR decrease interest in elections? Since PR elections tend to focus on issues, more citizens tend to become interested. Historically, cities that used PR saw increased voter turnout.
• Does PR mean minority rule? This is an objection already seen and answered, basically. PR allows for some minority representation, but ultimately the majority of elected representatives set the agenda. Majority rule does not require that each representative strictly represent the majority, it requires a majority of representatives that decide a question to represent a majority of voters, via coalition and agreement.
• Does PR infringe the rights of the voter? The PR system presented allows for a single transferable vote (STV), such that you get a single vote that is transferred to your next choice should your top choice not be able to win a seat. This system is the most fair because if you give everyone multiple votes (say, 7 votes for 7 seats), the tendency will be that the largest group will elect its 7 candidates (Democrats will vote for the 7 Democrats on the ballot, for example) and the resulting election will not proportionally represent all voters. Each person choose a single representative that best represents them, regardless of party affiliation or district.
• Does PR leave elections to chance? This is an objection based on the method of counting votes described in Hallet's book. Specifically, the objection is to the idea that votes for a winning candidate over the threshold are also transferred to second choice candidates; essentially, how do you choose which votes are transferred and which stay with the first choice? I'll leave the full details to the book, but effectively PR's method of counting is so fair and accurate that randomly choosing ballots to transfer and which to not still accurately represents the whole (because of statistics over a large group of people). And if one is not convinced by mathematics, there are ways to more deterministically decide the question (although they are a bit more complex). The winners are not left to chance in either method.
• Is PR "un-American"? PR carries out the American principles of majority rule and equality of voting power better than any other system.
• Is PR unimportant? Some object to a campaign for PR, because there are "more important things" to focus on than PR and we just need to "elect the right people" to get it done. However, focusing on "electing the right people" to accomplish the will of the people is much more difficult under today's system. PR makes it easy to stick to the issues and elect the right people, so PR needs to be a top priority reform before we can focus on other issues.
• Has PR failed where it has been tried? Many cities have moved to use PR successfully, producing the most balanced and issues-focused budgets in recent history. Where the establishment has attempted to repeal PR, voters historically soundly rejected it. (There were cases of PR being removed due to changes in state governance, and racism as we'll see, but most voters that tried PR were extremely satisfied with the results). In a nutshell, nearly everyone that tries it prefers it and sees immediate results.

Hallet's book was published in 1937 as PR was becoming very popular; unfortunately, many cities and counties that adopted PR would see it phased out later in the 1950's and '60s. So I would like to add one more "modern" bullet point to the previous list of objections:

• If PR has obvious advantages, why did cities that used it in the past almost completely abandoned the method in the 1950s and '60s? As FairVote's brief history of PR discusses, PR worked almost too well. PR was incredibly successful at breaking down party machines and including minority representation in government, and Hallet's points above have proven to be true across the country in all municipalities that adopted PR. However, during the civil rights movement era and the "red scare", leaders from the two major parties -- angry at being unable to control elections and therefore government like they used to -- used racist appeals to fear of "Negro mayors" or fear of Communists winning elections under PR in order to convince the population to vote to repeal PR and move back to the older plurality systems. Unfortunately, the scare tactics were successful in most places, with white voters voting 2:1 to repeal PR due to those fears. So after decades of successful use of PR, many cities votes to scrap it, not for any problem with PR itself (as said above, previous repeal attempts were unsuccessful due to huge satisfaction with the system) but fear-mongering from the major parties. To me, this is actually all the more reason and evidence that PR is successful and a worthwhile goal, and that we need to fight to educate voters and establish PR in the US once again!

In light of the history of the PR movement and the points above, one final question comes to mind. If we want to implement PR today, how do we actually get it implemented around our current corrupt system that will not support PR for fear of losing power? If the Green Party would like to address concerns of "splitting the vote" and gerrymandering, what can it do aside from running more candidates in an unfair election system?

Hallet's book and FairVote's article actually provide historical evidence of one path to victory: utilize the voter referendum. What does that mean, though? I will post a follow-up blog post where I will discuss referenda at length, and I will review my research on whether this is feasible soon.

Proportional Representation as the key to free and fair democratic elections

"But how will you win?" is a common question I've been hearing lately about the prospect of running as a third-party candidate, or even simply voting for third-party candidates. "Our members are a skeptical group that expects results", one representative of an organization told me (paraphrased) when I inquired about Green party support from the group, "and so you will need to convince our membership that you can win elections before we can endorse your candidates."

It is a frustrating response to hear when clearly, for decades now, the strategy of "changing" the two major parties to reflect the will of the people has produced only very small concessions and wins at best. While the inclusion of gay rights, for example, has been a huge win (and notice that win was largely in the courts and through citizen action, not from action of politicians in either party -- in fact, Obama and Clinton both famously were against gay marriage during the 2008 primaries), we have economically slid backward as both Democratic and Republican administrations continue their assault on working class Americans and the classic institutions that protected our human rights. Budgets are slashed, social programs are cut, regulations that protected us dismantled, all while the American people pick up the tab for the worldwide economic crash caused by those very same loosening of regulations. We now see decades of neoliberal policy culminating in the GOP's new tax plan that is obviously weighted toward the most wealthy at the expense of the poor, and it is very near passage. All of this is happening with a backdrop of constant war and involvement in the Middle East, with an ever-growing budget funding the military-industrial complex.

It is clear to me that not only is the status quo of the two parties no longer tenable, but the status quo of the "resistance" -- the idea that we can win over the establishment with a couple of hour-long marches and running progressives in the primaries under establishment rules -- is also no longer tenable. Progressives have for years been calling for change within the Democratic Party, and have failed as the party dragged those voices further and further right. For evidence, only look at past party leaders like Howard Dean, who once championed a progressive agenda including single payer, which now make arguments for further pro-corporate policy as they take massive donations from those very industries.

We have to change our tactics and strategy to make long-term progress and not just short-lived victories that are quickly crushed. And yet, I can't entirely blame the objections over third-party politics. In a sense, they are exactly right -- our electoral system has evolved to reinforce exactly this dilemma, to make it hard to break out of the establishment bubble. While it certainly can happen when people join together and demand it -- look at the DSA-backed independents and third-party members that won elections this year, as well as the Greens that won 44 new seats and counting, on top of past wins -- it is also foolish to say that there is not a significant road block. This road block is a multi-part road block, consisting of a legal system that discriminates against third parties, a media that ignores or even demonizes third parties, and the plain ol' "psychological inertia" of voters that are afraid of "wasting the vote" due to the intense long-term propaganda. The question isn't whether there is a road block (there is), but rather what to do about it.

Most of the objections over "winning" and "results" narrow down to objections over how easy (or hard) it is to convince people to vote third-party in a two-party duopoly. Our two-party duopoly is maintained by several factors, as I outlined in the previous paragraph, but one of the largest is the way we actually we vote. I heard over and over from voters, as I petitioned for signatures for Green candidates last summer, that if Greens ran more candidates they would be registered Green; the only reason they remained registered Democratic was to be able to vote in Pennsylvania's closed primaries. Important Pittsburgh positions like mayor are effectively determined in the primaries because the city is effectively a one-party Democratic town; if there is no Republican or Green or Libertarian challenger (and typically there isn't, in recent history) in the general, the Democratic primary winner is elected. Because of gerrymandering and our voting system, we have a city that is on paper "Democratic" by necessity, but many of its citizens are ready for an alternative. Democratic rule has not been effective at confronting many of Pittsburgh's problems. We still don't have a $15 living minimum wage, areas of the city are gentrifying out its citizens (while poorer districts are ignored by officials), parts of the city have lead pipes that the administration has been slow to combat (while even hiring consultants to make the argument of privatizing the public water supply, which is a very Republican thing to suggest), and many other problems.

While it's certainly possible for Greens to win elections if a majority stopped being afraid of voting third party (there's no law that stops Greens from winning in the general election, it's just the willpower of voters), there is a lot of mental resistance from voters for doing so, for fear of "splitting the vote". Some voters' concerns of "splitting the vote" are not entirely wrong, but I believe the concept focuses on the wrong aspect of the problem.

So what is "splitting the vote"? The United States and Pennsylvania in particular use plurality voting, which means whoever wins the most (a plurality) of votes wins the election. On the surface this seems perfectly fair, most votes is the winner, but when more than two candidates are on the ballot, it can lead to tactical voting. Voters become afraid to support anyone but one of the two perceived front-runners, for concern that the vote split across many candidates lowers the amount needed to win. For example, a four-way election in which three candidates get 24% of the vote and the fourth gets 28% of the vote declares the fourth candidate as the winner. 28% was the plurality, but something is clearly wrong with a system that allows someone with such a small vote total to win the election and pretend to represent the people. You aren't very representative if the overwhelming majority (72%!) voted against you! 2016 actually showed this, where both Trump and Clinton received less than a majority (50%) of the vote. Most Americans actually opposed both candidates by a slight majority, and Trump won despite having less votes than Clinton because our Electoral College hurts our voting methods for president even more. In fact, the same happened in the GOP primaries, where Trump won early states with only 20% or so of the vote; 18 candidates meant a very small threshold was required to win. When every presidential election in recent history is nearly an even split, it's not hard to see how plurality voting leads to our current angry partisan situation. And really, can you blame voters? Roughly half of the country is angry they lost because effectively they had no impact on the results of the elections. Either you "win" with "your" party, or you lose with the exact opposite party you least wanted to see win, there's no middle ground. And the corporate media is more than happy to take advantage and over-hype these contests and frame the debate toward supporting "realistic" corporate-backed candidates, leading to further corruption in the system.

So one strategy for Greens may be to run Greens in gerrymandered districts where it is unlikely that the other major party will offer an alternative -- in this way, there is no "vote splitting". I think this can work, but requires us to recruit candidates in those districts to run, which can sometimes be difficult when so many are afraid to leave the two major parties. While there is a lot of progressive interest in running for office, the recent DSA victories seem to have many progressives confident that running in the Democratic primaries is sufficient; while I'm not confident they will be able to repeat the successes at the state and federal level, even if they do, we leave open the door for a corporate re-take-over of the party until we change the system upon which our politics is based. We as Greens clearly need better outreach to candidates to convince them of our approach and the necessity for the third party politics.

Alongside the electoral approach, which can educate the voters about issues such as our voting system even if our candidates do not win, we need to also build a coalition for activism. We must acknowledge that our voting system needs to change, not just for Greens and third parties, but even just to improve the major parties' primary process. Voters from across the political spectrum must work to give up on archaic voting methods and join the modern world if we wish to be a strong democracy. We need a better system that promotes real debate on issues, rather than gerrymandering and voting for the "lesser of two evils" simply to avoid "splitting the vote".

To build a coalition, we need plan. Our current voting system is bad, most realize this. But what do we replace it with?

An alternative to plurality voting is called ranked choice voting, where voters select not just one candidate (which leads to the tactical "lesser of two evils" voting, as above) but rank ALL of the choices in order from most preferred to least. If the most preferred candidate does not have enough votes to win in the first round of vote counting, those votes are transferred to their second choice candidate, and the votes are re-tallied. This method is much more fair because now there is no concern about "splitting the vote", you can vote your conscience knowing that if your favorite candidate cannot mathematically win, your vote is transferred to the next best option, and so on. This method obviously results in the candidate with the broadest consensus being the winner; even if the winner is not everyone's top choice, it elects candidates with broad appeal rather than those with narrow minority support (which we saw before in the case of Trump in the 2016 primaries, for example), so voters are generally much more agreeable to the results of this voting method.

When electing a legislature (Congress or a state assembly of representatives), we encounter the same problem. Voters are split into districts and told to vote for a single candidate. Again, many voters are reluctant to vote for a third or fourth choice for fear that the other major party candidate will win. Districts themselves are often "gerrymandered", drawn in such a way as to group together all of the votes for one major party or the other in a single district, with the effect that the aggregate winners across all districts do not actually reflect the interests of individual voters across the districts. We see this in Pennsylvania where despite a clear majority of voters voting for Democratic candidates statewide, Republicans control a majority of state representative seats. Gerrymandering "dilutes" Democratic votes by pushing them into a small number of districts where they have less impact overall (e.g., they can't elect very many representatives since there aren't many districts). To be fair, Democrats have done the same to Republicans in other states and other points in time; the two major parties constantly swing back and forth in power, abusing the re-districting process and plurality vote to gain majority control of government.

For legislative bodies, the fix is known as proportional representation (PR), which is basically ranked choice when you need to pick more than one person. Rather than using districts, we let voters choose their preferred candidate(s) from a list of ALL candidates. For example, rather than Pittsburgh splitting itself into small wards, we let everyone in Pittsburgh vote from a list of candidates that may come from anywhere in the city. Voters rank their preferences, so we again lose any worry of "splitting the vote". As votes are tallied, we set a threshold that anyone reaching an agreed minimum number of votes wins a seat. This means the election is about getting the correct number of votes needed to be elected, rather than a percentage of the overall, which tends to have the effect that candidates focus more on winning votes rather than attacking opponents (too much attacking and you will likely scare off some of your own voters). As we count votes and determine winners, we transfer votes from losing candidates (that have no possibility of getting the required number of votes) onto other candidates, and keep recounting until we get the appropriate number of winners. In fact, we can even transfer votes from winning candidates onto second choice candidates, and therein lies the beauty of PR. As we transfer votes, we settle on the most popular candidates that were ranked the highest by the largest number of people, and thus settle on winners that reflect the majority of the voters, all while providing a small number of seats to minority groups (smaller groups still have a good chance at winning even just one seat, since they need only gather up the minimum number of votes to win, they don't need to necessary "beat" any other candidate). In this way, the final set of winners that make up the legislative body are diverse, the majority of them elected by the majority, while ensuring smaller groups have at least some say in the debate by being able to elect at least one person. This method is known as the single transferable vote (STV) since voters simply rank their preferences, and their votes are automatically transferred to the next highest candidate that needs the vote to win. Some countries use an alternative version of PR known as "party list" where voters vote for a party rather than an individual, but this is less desirable as it puts some control of elections and candidates in party hands rather than the people's hands. The STV PR method ensures a truly representative body that was elected by focusing on issues and winning votes rather than scaring voters with attack ads and "lesser evil" arguments. It also allows lesser known candidates a fair shot at getting the required minimum of votes, even against more well-known establishment candidates, since votes are automatically transferred as needed.

There's a lot of detail in here about exactly how to count the votes in an STV PR system, but hopefully this argument has at least shown why we should even be considering adopting such a system.

Greens already support PR in the Green platform. Locally, I think we need to run as many candidates as we can -- the more the better! Every campaign is an opportunity for voter outreach and education on the issues, and when we win, we can use what clout we win to push even more for PR from within government. However, that said, I think a successful campaign for PR will also take some activism from outside electoral politics.

Since the post is already fairly long, I'll pause here and plan a follow up post about the specifics of exactly how PR works, as well as some responses to common objections to PR, based on an interesting book I recently picked up. I'll also have some thoughts on how we can work toward PR in the Pittsburgh area and beyond using a combination of electoral politics and activism. Stay tuned!

Be Careful Labeling 2017 Democratic Elections as "Wins"

Initial analysis of 2017 seems to show that many high profile races resulted in democratic socialist candidates winning, even in districts that previously voted for Trump or GOP in past elections. Here in PA and Pittsburgh in particular, we saw an independent candidate Mik Pappas win against an incumbent establishment Democrat (who held the office for 24 years!), as well as Our Revolution and DSA candidate Anita Prizio also winning a seat on the county council. But independents, progressives, socialists, and Greens won races across PA and the nation yesterday. Greens have been elected to more than 44 local offices just this year so far. More ran for office, with some like Jabari Brisport in New York City receiving some of the highest third party votes in decades. In fact, the Green "success rate" (percent of all Green candidates that won their races) was something like 27%, which is pretty impressive for a smaller third party that rejects corporate cash and relies solely on small individual donors in a strongly unfair electoral system.

This is a great start for progressives, and I think shows an upward trend for third party candidates. Imagine what we can do as the Greens grow with more volunteers and candidates! While we should definitely celebrate some early wins against the establishment, I think we also need to pause and be wary about how we interpret these events.

The media is already reporting this as a "blue wave" of Democrats and trying to co-opt the movement. Ex-Clinton campaign staff are already out saying Democrats are winning and that Bernie should be a Democrat or get out of the party because they don't need him. And to some degree, they're right: despite the strong showing from Green/DSA progressive candidates, many more corporatist right-wing Democrats have been elected solely on an anti-Trump agenda. As Draft Bernie points out, the media has been focusing on a few Democrats: Ralph Northam, a conservative that voted for George Bush in past elections, and Phil Murphy, a former Goldman-Sachs executive. As is typical, Democrats think that catering to conservatives and financial elite is OK since they'll get elected anyway just for not being Trump.

We need to watch these newly elected officials, because we've seen this behavior before. Remember a "blue wave" swept Obama into his first term with a majority in Congress, which Democrats then squandered and made sure very little of the progressive agenda was actually accomplished. In fact, some of Obama and the Democratic Congress's first acts were to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, expand war in the Middle East, and pass a right-wing health insurance plan that relies on for-profit insurance to deliver care (Obama quickly dropped his earlier proposals for a public option once elected). And in fact he was willing to cut social security and other programs to get a deal, and pushed on that idea throughout his presidency. None of that is progressive at all, and it's really par for the course with Democrats. They (at best) sound progressive on the campaign trail, but as soon as elected, the donors pull the strings to get what they want. The needs of the people come last, every time.

It's even harder to believe that Democrats will change much from this election when you consider these progressives are being swept into a larger party that is still set up to squelch progressive voices. DNC chair Tom Perez is fresh off of kicking progressives out of leadership roles in the party and is still out repeating Clinton campaign talking points. Donna Brazile's truth-speaking about the stolen Democratic primary is now being called Russian propaganda, among other things. Most disappointingly perhaps, even Bernie Sanders has dialed back his expectations for the Democratic Party, with a recent email to supporters saying he wanted the DNC to "reduce" the number of super-delegates in the party, rather than previous calls to eliminate the undemocratic super-delegates all-together. The local candidates that won office today are only a few small voices within a giant political machine that is continuing to do as much as it can to crush those progressive voices, and I worry those local candidates will quickly find themselves frustrated by party leadership.

While we celebrate some local wins, let's also be careful not to get too excited about the overall Democratic Party victories as a sign of progressives winning. While progressives certainly had some encouraging victories, they haven't taken the party yet, and Democratic leadership thinks 2018 will be an easy win because of Trump; not only do I think that is a dangerous attitude to have (as we saw in the losses of 2016), but the 2017 elections reaffirm Democratic beliefs that there's no need to change the party because they still win votes by default by simply not being Republicans. I think progressives are really shooting themselves in the foot when they donate their time and energy into the Democratic party by running as Democratic candidates. Exactly as we're seeing, even when progressives win, the Democratic Party machine simply uses it as an excuse to support its agenda and attack insurgent progressives even more. You're emboldening your enemy the more you try to play nice with them and think you need to follow their rules. Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s non-violence movement wasn't to work with the oppressors within the system, it was to peacefully build a new coalition outside of the system that would force the needed cultural changes.

Power never gives up power for free. You generally can't appeal to power's "sense of fairness", because it has none. Democrats will not give up their power, their rich donors, their corporate influence in the party until forced to do so. They will continue to attack progressives and rig elections because it has worked in the past for them. Democrats have to lose big time and see their voter base dry up before they will make changes; only when the voters leave and Democrats are no longer a "sure thing" will the donor money dry up too, and it will take hitting their bottom line before they get the message. Whether you believe we need a whole new party or believe Democrats can be reformed, both strategies I think require a strong Green Party challenger to the Democrats to win some high profile elections and force Democrats to re-think their position in politics.

I'm looking forward to the opportunity for the Green Party and progressive movement in general in 2018. I hope you'll join the Greens too and help us run more candidates and expand our movement.

A Call for Fair Elections

In this post, I will outline the improvements we need to make for fair elections in Pennsylvania (and the country as a whole). These improvements will ideally be implemented by the next presidential election (2020), but the sooner the better as many actions will also improvement how the state handles state and local elections. I call on Governor Tom Wolf as well as state GOP and Democratic leaders to implement these changes as soon as possible.

Note that I previously discussed some of these issues in past post, but I'm putting them together in a shorter simpler format here along with some maybe new ideas not previously addressed.

1. National Popular Vote Act. By passing the NPVA, Pennsylvania would award its electoral votes for president to whichever candidate has the majority of the popular vote. This would effectively abolish the Electoral College at the state level, and would only go into effect once a winning majority of states agree to the compact. This would make our presidential election system more democratic and ensure that the candidate with the most votes always becomes president. Ultimately we should support a constitutional amendment if necessary, but as states have the authority to determine how electors are assigned, this plan is also perfectly constitutional but can be implemented faster.
2. Free and Fair Elections Resolution. By passing FFER, Pennsylvania would call for a Convention of the States under the authority of Article V in the Constitution on the topic of money in politics. The convention would be used to draft one or more constitutional amendments to limit the power of outside money and influence in our election system, possibly by overturning court cases such as Citizens United vs FEC (whereby corprorate money was equated with free speech) and McCutcheon vs FEC (whereby large donors could donate money to races outside of their home district, allowing someone from for example California to influence Pennsylvania's vote for Senate). This resolution doesn't create any new law, only calls for a convention. Any amendment drafted at the convention would then need to be voted on by all the states before it becomes law, so there's no reason to not support this resolution since all it does is call for more debate on the subject. But, it could lead to some very good outcomes for democracy by keeping our elections local choices without outside interference. Note that this bipartisan legislation was introduced and had large support in the last session of the PA assembly, but was not voted on in time before end of the session. We're pushing for it to be voted on as a first order of business in the next session in January. 6 other states have already called for a convention.
3. Switch to Ranked Choice or Score Voting. Our current system, known as "first past the goal post", is failing us. It often leads to the tactical voting we saw in the 2016 Trump vs Clinton election. Voters should feel free to vote for their favored candidate, and not against their least favorite candidate. Furthermore, in cases where ties happen, or no candidate receives a majority of votes (when many candidates are running), our current system requires a costly run-off to determine the will of the people. We can fix both issues by switch to Ranked Choice or Score Voting. In Ranked Choice voting, we rank candidate from most favorite to least favorite, and we eliminate the lowest vote-getter one by one until a clear winner occurs. We can do this because if someone's favorite candidate is eliminate, we know who their next favorite is already. Score Voting is kind of like rating each candidate on a 1-5 star scale. Everyone rates every candidate, then we average up all the ratings. Whichever candidate has the highest rating wins. In both cases, we clearly know who is favored by the most voters, and voters may effectively choose multiple candidates (by ranking multiple favorites higher than others, or giving more than one candidate a 5 star rating) which takes out some of the current party-line voting tactics we see. These methods lead to more moderate candidates everyone can agree on, rather than our current system which favors more extreme candidates. Research leans toward Score Voting being the most fair, but Ranked Choice is also ok and was recently approved by voters in Maine. Pennsylvania should be the next state to adopt a more fair voting method.
4. Universal Access to Early Voting. Currently, Pennsylvania's early voting provisions only apply to voters with medical conditions or those on active duty in the military. You have to apply for a ballot and be approved. The restriction should be removed, and all eligible voters that request a mail ballot should receive one.
5. State/National Voting Holiday. Election day should be declared a holiday. All non-essential/non-emergency workers should receive at a minimum a half day off work, if not a full day, the idea being to allow lots of time for citizens to meet up, discuss the issues, and actually go vote. Currently, many people leave the long voting lines because they need to get back to work, for example. Pennsylvania can declare the day a mandatory holiday for most workers; essential/emergency workers should have the opportunity to vote early by mail. Another option is to extend voting to multiple days (preferably including a weekend day) to ensure maximum voter turn out.
6. Increase Polling Station Numbers. Some polling locations around Pittsburgh saw long lines (90+ minute wait times). This is unacceptable. Allegheny County needs to open more polling locations, with financial/logistical help from Pennsylvania if necessary. I imagine Philadelphia also saw similar issues. We should take pride in democracy and make it very quick and easy to vote.
7. Switch to Verifiable Paper Ballot Trail. Pennsylvania voting machines currently are all electronic and do not produce a paper trail that allows full auditing of the vote count. Pennsylvania should ideally switch to a completely paper ballot, or at least a better electronic voting system. Pennsylvania would need to help counties purchase new equipment, etc.
8. Required Mailers Prior to Election. Pennsylvania should require that each county/district mail simple fliers to every registered voter, reminding them of voting day, their polling place, and providing a sample ballot with information on how to contact the campaign of each candidate for more information. This should be done at least 2 weeks ahead of time, probably 30 days. It was like pulling teeth trying to find my sample ballot on the PA Secretary of State website; that's unacceptable.

Deconstructing Fear Tactics in a Mailer

Today I received the following in the mail:

I'm assuming they mailed everyone registered Green/Libertarian; my wife answered a Democratic door-to-door canvasser the other day and so possibly they marked us as Greens after speaking with her.

Regardless, a few things come to mind after receiving this.

First, someone spent a good chunk of money mailing to Greens and Libertarians. That indicates to me a level of fear, that the 3rd parties may have significantly more support than the media wants to admit. Johnson is doing pretty well, and Stein is about at 5% in the poll they cite, which is good for party building. Obviously I hope she does much better than this, but if she does get 5% of the vote, the Green party immediately qualifies for federal funding next election, and is immediately on the ballot in many states. The Greens had to spend a lot of time money and energy this cycle fighting to get on the ballot, so it would be a huge help for growing the party next election cycle.

Secondly, the reasoning on the back is not very convincing to me. On the left, they cite Obama and Bernie as a "Join the Bandwagon" argument. Which is of course not really an argument.

The real issue though are the 5 points on the right. I'll copy them below in case its hard to read, then add commentary.

1. "Like it or not, we live in a two-party political system. Does that need to change? Maybe, but the two-party system is our reality."

This is completely missing the point on why many people vote third party, and actually encourages me even more to vote Green. We do live in effectively a two-party political system. It does need to change, not "maybe". There is no law, no section of the constitution, that requires that we use the first-past-the-goal-post method of voting or that we only have two parties. I am specifically voting Green because I want to break the two-party system that has been American reality in modern history (note that historically, America has had many parties, and today's modern GOP was actually initially a "protest" third party against the historically-dominant Whig party).

I think the GOP has become exceedingly right wing, and the Democratic party has become too right wing -- albeit more moderate than the GOP, but right wing regardless. Note that I meant right wing in the sense of economic policy here; yes, Democrats don't generally make a big deal about gay marriage, but that's not what I'm talking about. We need a progressive vision for America in all debates and discussions, not just a moderately right wing and a super right wing party. I'm voting Green to have another option that actually represents my views.

So I think this statement not only fails, but is even somewhat antagonistic.

2. There are only two people with a chance to win this election -- Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

This is very likely true, based on polling and historical trends. I don't argue that it is a big uphill climb for third party candidates. What I do argue with is that this statement again implies the two-party system is unchanging. It wouldn't be impossible, depending on the mood of the electorate, for a third party candidate to win. More likely, enough people will vote third party that there is no clear electoral college winner. I don't think anyone has a clear view into who would be president in that scenario; the House would vote on the President, but seeing as so many GOP are anti-Trump, it's entirely possible they'd compromise on Clinton... or more intriguingly, perhaps some other candidate.

This statement also assumes that your only goal is to elect someone that "can win", as if the presidency is the only office that matter. It is definitely important, but Congress also is. Even if Stein or Johnson are unlikely to win -- even in the electoral college loss scenario -- your vote still matters, because a party that gets 5% nationally is guaranteed federal funding and ballot access next election cycle. You can vote for someone you know is likely to lose, because you want to see a party that represents your values grow. I want to see more Green candidates running for office, and that happens if the party gets more funding and ballot access. That doesn't happen if you continue to vote status quo.

This statement wasn't statistically wrong, but leaving out a lot of important details to keep you locked into the idea of a two-party system.

3. Donald Trump is an uncompromising racist and bigot, who says and does incredibly offensive things. He's attacked immigrants, the disabled, veterans, and even said climate change is a "hoax".

4. Hillary Clinton is the most qualified option. She believes everyone should be treated fairly, regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

I think points 3 and 4 have to be looked at together.

I am glad Clinton's official statement believes in fairness. But that statement is easy; Notice it only talks about fairness and not her actual policies. Let's compare Trump and Clinton.

• "Donald Trump attacks immigrants". But, Obama has deported more immigrants under midnight raids than Bush or past presidents. Clinton previously defended deporting immigrants, even children fleeing violence, and is very likely to continue those policies. Her campaign has stated she will not do so as president, but given her past record, one would have to ask if she will actually follow through or is just going after votes.
• "Donald Trump attacks veterans". But Clinton voted for Iraq war, was the architect of Libya, which is now a failing state, and is calling for more involvement in Syria, potentially putting more soldiers at risk and creating more veterans.
• "Donald Trump attacks climate change". But Clinton as Secretary of State pushed for more fracking worldwide, which contributes to environmental pollution and climate change. She could have pushed for clean energy programs if she believed in them, but she didn't. Sure, on paper she believes in climate change, but her actions don't show someone that is very concerned with it.
• While she now believes everyone should be treated fairly, she didn't as recently as 2013, when she finally flipped on gay marriage. Previously, she strongly argued in favor of marriage being a "sacred bond" between a man and a woman only.

The Wikileaks is also exposing many instances of pay-to-play, where Clinton used her clout as Secretary of State to get favorable deals for countries that donated to her. Is that what you mean by being "most qualified", that she knows more world leaders with civil rights violations that regularly donate to her? The story about Clinton from Elizabeth Warren about how Clinton quickly changed her stance on banking laws once she became a Senator and started accepting campaign donations.

In no way am I saying that I support Trump or think he is a better pick than Clinton. My point here is that, despite what they're trying to convince you of, Clinton is not a good pick either if you care about these issues.

Stein and the Greens are the only ones that are proposing a more compassionate immigration policy, diplomacy over weapons and warfare, aggressively combating climate change, and civil rights.

5. A vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson is a vote for Donald Trump. It's not a protest or a statement - it just puts Donald Trump one step closer to appointing Supreme Court justices and controlling our military.

No, a vote for Stein is a vote for Stein and her policies. End of story. That's how voting works; I pick who I want to win. I reject the false two-party narrative that you only vote to stop someone. My vote is absolutely a statement. I don't view it as a protest, because I am voting for the candidate and platform I prefer. If I wanted to protest, I would vote Vermin Supreme.

The scare tactics here with Trump are also pretty strong.

First, Supreme Court. If Trump appoints a strongly conservative candidate, can't Democrats block the nomination as the Republicans have to Obama's appointee? If the Democrats don't have the strength or willpower to stop it, then they are a failing party and it will happen regardless my vote. What I'm more concerned about is that Trump and Clinton will both compromise and pick an exceedingly pro-corporate "moderate" justice that will continue to uphold legal concepts like "corporations are people" that have allowed unlimited money to flow into politics. Obama's pick Merrick Garland is in this mold; prior to appointment by Obama, many Republicans had praised him as a great Supreme Court justice. Why are you so afraid of Trump appointing when Republican-leaning justices when Obama has done so and Clinton will likely do so as well? Also, keep in mind that Supreme Court is not the end-all; for cases important enough, we can overturn the Supreme Court with a constitutional amendment. If our representatives are not bold enough to support a national referendum on a constitutional amendment, then again, they have failed us as leaders and my vote for them wouldn't matter. Constitutional amendments were pretty common throughout American history until the most recent generation; it's time to change that. And via Article V of the constitution, we can get amendments without congressional support if necessary. I have faith in our citizens and our system.

Trump controlling the military is a bit of a scary thought, but consider this: much of the actual day to day decisions are handled by generals of the branches. Trump is, as far as we can trust him to not flip-flop, rather isolationist; he has advocated pulling out of the middle east and stopping more wars. Clinton meanwhile supported the Iraq invasion, the overthrow of Libya, and now wants to step up warfare actions in Syria. She's also blaming the Russians every time emails come out about her, which antagonizes them. Both of them could mean extended conflict. Again, the sensible choice is Stein and the Greens, which emphasizes humanitarian aid and the end of weapons sales to all sides of the conflict, to be enforced by embargoes and sanctions against any country arming any side of the conflict. The idea is without the flow of weapons feeding conflict, all sides would be more willing to negotiate diplomatically. Sanctions and embargoes got Iran to the negotiating table, so why wouldn't it work in Syria?

Overall, I find this mailer ridiculous. Stein and the Green party are the clear choice for this election.

A Vision for a Better Elections Process

Before we can make reality happen, we have to imagine what could be. In other words, let's write down the best case scenario that we would love to see happen, and then consider what it takes to get from here to there. It might be a big jump, or it might be smaller more incremental steps, but we always have an end goal in mind. (Incidentally, this is one of many reasons I strongly disagree with Hillary Clinton's assessment of healthcare -- even if she's right in a political way that we should fight for incremental steps to the ACA, she's completely wrong to speak out against universal healthcare as a thing that can never happen. We need to first declare our morals/value system, the vision we have for our country, and only then work out compromises as necessary to work toward that ideal while we sell people on our vision. She basically gave up already without a fight, leaving Republicans with an opening to attack her lack of vision.)

So, in a more long form response to a recent tweet by Zephyr Teachout, I present my vision for a stronger democratic elections process that we all can have faith in.

Campaign Finance

Currently, campaigns require a lot of money. The higher the office, the more money. On the face of it, this makes sense -- after all, higher offices are over larger districts/states (in case of president, the whole country even!), and so reaching out to all of those people is going to cost more than running for a local office. I don't question the need for money.

What I question is how we get the money. Currently, campaigns are either self-funded (if you are lucky enough to have the money, unless you want to try a shoestring budget), or most often especially at the federal level, funded by donors. These donors can be small donors -- small donations from people with average salaries -- but often these donations come from high-wealth donors. You don't generally have lots of money dropped on you, so these high-wealth donors are almost entirely executives at large companies -- banks, multimedia, automobiles, whatever.

This is where the problem comes in. Large amounts of money from small groups of people starts to make you wonder if these people have more say-so than the average person. Even

Solution: Require public funding of elections. Qualified candidates receive a stipend, and equal amounts of air time (radio, TV, etc. -- which we can do since our government leases out the airwaves; they are not owned by corporations, despite what those corporations may think). "Qualified" is a bit subjective and needs debate before it can be set at a reasonable limit; it may even take a few elections of trial and error to find a good bar. But generally speaking, candidates receiving backing from a party (not just Democrats/Republicans, but any party with a certain size of registered voters per capita in each state) or an independent with enough signatures would qualify for full funding. Otherwise, private funding is not allowed.

Short term, we can require donations only to local candidates. That is, a candidate must represent the district that a donor lives in (in case of corporate donations, the corporate headquarters must exist in that district). This is basically what the combination of the Supreme Court rulings Citizens United and McCutcheon allowed -- unlimited flow of money to any candidate in the country. In other words, a large corporate executive from another state can spend lots of money to get a certain candidate in Pennsylvania elected. This needs to stop; PA congressmembers are representative of us, not other states.

One way to achieve this is by calling for a constitutional convention where we draft such an amendment. Several organizations exist calling for this. PA United to Amend is a great one for PA. You can contact them via the Wolf-PAC Pennsylvania group: http://www.wolf-pac.com/pennsylvania or find the Wolf-PAC branch for your state.

Voting Methods

Currently, when we go to vote and step into the ballot booth, we are presented with a list of candidates. We pick one candidate, vote for them, and leave. The winner is the candidate with the most votes, and generally is whoever gets over 50% of the vote. This is known as First-Past-The-Goal-Post voting, and it seems fair on the surface. Most votes wins. But there are several problems with how we do it in the United States.

Firstly, there's only a clear winner when there's only two candidates running. It's easy to say one person won over the other. But what if there's three candidates? Say, one gets 40% of the vote, and the other two each get 30%. Instinct would say the 40% is the most votes and wins, but is it fair? What the vote shows is that 60% of voters -- a landslide majority! -- did NOT want that candidate. So is it fair to let a candidate win that didn't get most of the votes?

Secondly, the above scenario leads to several misconceptions about voting. Because people are afraid of the three-way scenario, it's very easy to gravitate into just two political parties, much like we have for most of American history. When someone does want to vote for the "third party" candidate, the person is immediately accused of splitting the vote, or even worse, throwing away the vote. This is not true, as the person is doing what any voter should do -- voting for the preferred candidate. Voting for who you prefer should NEVER be a bad thing, and so this is more evidence of the problem behind First-Past-The-Goal-Post. Furthermore, fear of splitting the vote leads also to tactical voting, where someone votes for a non-ideal candidate just to prevent a scary candidate from winning. This is super evident in this election as many are voting for Clinton out of fear of Trump, and vice versa, but the same behavior also leads to "safe" districts where the same Democrat/Republican wins all the time and doesn't allow challengers. Again, you should always be voting for whom you think is best, not against someone you fear, so our voting method is doing us a great disservice.

Third, as we see in the primaries, what happens when your preferred candidate loses the primary? Since all you did was pick one candidate, delegates to the party conventions have NO IDEA who you would prefer of the remaining candidates. Basically, you voted for a favorite, but no one knows who your second choice is! So if your preferred candidate drops out of the race, your vote is basically ignored -- or worse, switched to a candidate you didn't want, all because no one knows who your second choice was. Think of all the people that voted for John Kasich, for example. The top two delegate counts are Trump and Cruz; so as a Kasich voter, which do you prefer of Trump or Cruz? Well, a Kasich delegate has no idea because all you did was vote for Kasich -- you didn't vote for a backup! So that delegate now has to guess. Your vote almost didn't matter, even if you vote in primaries of the two major parties.

So what can we do? Change our voting method!

Solution: Switch to a Score or Ranked Voting Method. Instead of picking one candidate, these methods let you declare how you feel about ALL of the candidates. The best way to think of Score Voting is to think of it like an Amazon or Yelp review. You rate every candidate on a scale of 1-5 stars. We then tally up everyone's scores, and the candidate with the highest rating wins. Why is this fair? Well, now you can rate as many candidates as you want. You can give both Jill Stein and Hillary Clinton 5 stars if you were happy with either; you could still vote for Jill by giving her a large score, while at the same time knowing you also supported Hillary (a major party) so you didn't "waste your vote". And, once we tally up scores, we might find a lot more people supported Jill than we realized, and were just afraid to vote a third party in the past. This method ensures that the person that the most people preferred wins. Ranked Voting allows you to rank candidates in order of favorite to least favorite. An example would be: #1 Jill Stein, #2 Hillary Clinton, #3 Gary Johnson, #4 (last) Donald Trump. We tally up everyone's #1 vote and see if there's a winner (which requires a majority, greater than 50%). If there's no winner, we eliminate the person with the lowest number of votes; anyone voting for the person that was eliminated, their vote gets transferred to their backup #2 choice, and then we re-tally the votes. We keep doing this until there's a clear winner. Again, the method favors more popular candidates. Remember that our current method actually allows -- and even favors to some extent! -- candidates that people generally DO NOT like, so either Score or Ranked Voting is a huge improvement.

Research has showed that Score voting is easier to understand and use, and easier to implement. Ranked voting is a little more complicated in the mathematics. But either method would be vastly superior to our current methods.

I'm not aware of a large-scale effort to change the voting methods at the state or federal level. Some municipalities do use alternate voting methods. Other countries in the world also use these alternate voting methods and it has worked fine. We should really lean on our elected officials to get alternate voting methods implemented in elections as soon as possible.

Redistricting

Our voting districts are formed based on US Census data, taken every 10 years. According to the constitution, we divide up a set number of representatives among the states using a formula based on the population of each state, and the same thing happens at the state level.

Districts don't stay the same though; they can't, since populations change. Districts need to move to where the people are. That's fine. But did you know that the districts are hand-drawn? And each state's congress votes to approve the districts. Highly partisan congresses can draw these districts in such a way as to "spread" out vote for the opposing party into multiple districts. As an example, an area that has more Democratic voters than Republicans can actually end up with more Republican representatives than Democrats, because in each district the Republicans win the vote, despite the overall being in favor of Democrats. This effect is known as gerrymandering and is a well known problem.

So districts need re-drawn after each census, but entrusting politicians to draw their own political maps encourages abuse of power. So what do we do?

Solution: Require automatic computer drawing of districts using a known open source software. Specific requirements would need to be debated by experts in the field, but it can certainly be done. A prototype example was recently covered in the news. The software needs to be open source. For those not familiar, open source software basically means that the programming code that makes the software work is open for anyone to study and analyze it. This means you can't hide anything; experts can look and find problems or rigged software. This is important, because if we are not allowed to know how it works (because some company owns the rights to it and keeps it secret), then we can't trust that it is doing the right thing.

At the very least, if we don't want district maps drawn entirely by computers, we can ensure the redistricting process is much more open and inclusive. Take a look at hypothetical redistricting done for Philadelphia using some open source software that helps keep track of demographics for fairness, as an example.

In either case, I'm not aware of a specific federal or state movement to make this happen, but there does seem to be growing momentum from researchers to move to a computerized method. We need to make sure our elected officials know that gerrymandering cannot continue.

Voting Process

Currently, we vote in November for most offices. Election day is always on Tuesday. Know what else is on Tuesday? Work. School. Whatever. The point is, people are busy, and in many cases, cannot simply take a day off. Employees may not have paid time-off, and missing pay might mean not eating that week. Students might have an important exam that day that cannot be missed. Ideally the employer or school would understand and schedule around Election Day, but not everyone does or thinks about it. Even if they did: what if you became violently ill on Election Day? There's no Voting Makeup Day that I'm aware of.

Even if you can show up, this year's primaries showed a large number of districts and states shutting down polling stations. Locations were closed, and not enough ballots were at some districts, leaving some people to wait hours before they could vote. Many people didn't have hours to wait (waiting might have meant missing work, which means missing a paycheck and possibly not having the money for rent or food this week) and gave up and went home, which should never happen in a country that prides itself on being a strong democracy.

There will likely never be a way to cover all of the possibilities. But we can definitely take some simple steps toward making sure that the large majority of people have a fair chance at voting.

Solution: National Holiday Voting Weekend, and restoration of a stronger Voting Rights Act. Voting should be a multiday event, including at least one weekend day. Law should require that everyone have at least one of the days during Voting Weekend off of work; as we saw in this year's primaries, going during a lunch break or even having a couple hours isn't enough. Extending the voting period would likely increase our abysmal voter turnout numbers. Besides, I would hope that getting a day off would help every citizen have a little extra time to do some last-minute research to decide how to vote. (Ideally, research would be done early, but since scandals can occur, there is some logic to waiting until last minute to decide). In any case, there also needs to be strong laws requiring a certain number of polling stations per capita and/or within so many miles of voters. The Voting Rights Act was used to ensure this was the case in many districts across the country, but was struck down by the Supreme Court. Congress could easily pass a fixed version of the law that removes the provision the Supreme Court objected to while still protecting our voting rights... but they haven't.

Contact your state and federal representatives to establish stronger voting rights laws, and a voting holiday.

Consistent Trustworthy Ballots

Currently voting consists of going in to a polling station. Depending on the state, you may be faced with a paper ballot, or you may vote on an electronic device. Such vastly different ballots can lead to confusion when comparing them, or when a person moves between states.

Furthermore, as more ballots are cast on electronic devices (and possibly over the Internet in the near future), there comes a question of: did I vote for the right person? Was my vote recorded correctly? Does the machine tally the votes correctly? We need to have trust in our voting process.

Solution: Nationwide ballot standards, and a requirement of open-source voting machine software. We have standardized forms for so many other things like taxes, why aren't our voting records standardized and easy to tally and scrutinize? We could set some laws requiring common formats for ballots across the states. Furthermore, to ensure trust in our electronic devices, the software the runs the devices needs to be open source. Our voting records MUST be processed by software open source to the public, so we can all (in principle) check that the software is doing what it should be doing correctly. Maybe someone rigged the systems? Maybe no one did it on purpose, a software glitch incorrectly counts votes? Requiring open source software prevents these scenarios by allowing them to easily be found. Currently, devices are proprietary and treated as trade secrets; in other words, none of us are allowed to check that the voting machine works properly, we just have to trust that the company that made it did a good job. And we all know how blind trust in companies tends to work out...

I'm also not aware of a nationwide movement to update our balloting format. The Free Software Foundation more generally fights for open source (more accurately called free software -- it is "free" as in "freedom", protecting your freedom to know what software does) and does a great job, but I'm not aware of a specific campaign for voting machines or redistricting software.

I think it is our duty to contact state and federal congressmembers to make them aware of these issues and push for more legislation.

What would you like to see done to improve our democratic process?