VotePact Gives You Leverage Over The Duopoly

-by Sam Husseini,
Founder, Vote Pact

VotePact is a voting strategy that advocates that people vote for their actual preferences by pairing up with someone on the other side of the Democratic-Republican divide. So people can strategically vote for the candidates they most like without fear of helping those they most fear. Instead of effectively cancelling out each other-- one for Trump and one for Biden, they can both vote Libertarian or Green or whatever they want.

It is effectively DIY ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list their preferences 1-2-3. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just vetoed a RCV bill in California and Republicans in Maine are still trying to block voters from using RCV in the presidential election-- which is expected to be a historic first.

Such attempts to limit voter choice are endemic to the establishment parties. indeed, much of our political and media system is designed to keep voters in perpetual subjugation to the Democratic and Republican parties: atomized, perpetually triggered by the latest outrage of 'the other side.' This effectively makes the establishment parties less and less accountable to the public since ironically, if each of the parties becomes worse, more fear kicks in spurring desperate support for the other. This creates a vicious cycle of fear and hatred and actually strengthens the duopoly. VotePact gives a strategic path out of this -- and even modest use of it could give the voting public leverage over the duopoly candidates since their votes can no longer be taken for granted."

While many establishment Democrats complain constantly that Green Party candidate Jill Stein 'took votes away' from Hillary Clinton and handed the 2016 election to Trump, they effectively block RCV reforms which would solve the problem.

But unlike RCV and other institutional reforms, VotePact doesn't require waiting for governmental sign off that may never come. Anyone can do this right now with someone from the other side of the duopoly.

A related problem is polling. Most polls are phrased something like 'if the election were held today, which of the following would you vote for: Democrat Joe Biden, Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate.' But that just echos the voting bind and doesn't get at voter preference.

If pollsters cared to measure actual voter preferences, they would ask people to rank candidates 1-2-3, RCV style. Or they can ask: "Biden, Trump, Jorgensen and Hawkins are in a four-way tie. You are the tie-breaker, the deciding vote. Who do you vote for?' That would get at actual voter opinion.

But voter preference and control are hindered, including by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a creation of the establishment Democrats and Republicans that is sponsoring what should be called a joint televised appearance Thursday night between Trump and Biden. Third party candidates are having their own debate with the group Free and Equal on Saturday. See my letter The Huge Problem with Polls to Frank Newport of Gallup and the CPD.

Some advocate that people voting third party in safe states and 'lesser evil' in swing states, which is certainly a positive step, but it obviously restricts voter choice in 'swing states,' is likely a recipe for muffling national advocacy of third parties-- and it's not scalable. That is, a third party candidate gaining traction would likely redefine which states are safe states, though that seems unlikely this year. VoteTrumpOut lists these as swing states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, or Wisconsin.

But VotePact can work with two people in any state and it doesn't advocate for any candidate, it is simply a tool anyone can use to strategically vote for their preferred candidate with the radical act of cooperating with someone from the other side of the partisan divide. If needed, the issue of trust in this election can be overcome by people filling out mail in ballots together. A PAC backing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson rebranded VotePact as The Balanced Rebellion in 2016, got 37 million views on Facebook with an entertaining video featuring 'dead Abe Lincoln' and helped Johnson score the biggest third party success since Ross Perot. However, most third party candidates seem to have no strategy for electoral success, the Greens this year are saying they are largely out to preserve their ballot access.

New England Is Now, Congressionally Speaking, A Republican-Free Zone— Congratulations

Winning smile

Although Maine’s largely rural second congressional district voted for Obama both times he ran, in 2016 it was anything but Hillary country. First Bernie wiped her out in the state caucuses 64.3% to 35.3%. And in the 2nd it was even worse for her. Bernie took every county, Oxford with over 70%. When the general election rolled around, Hillary was toast; Trump beat her 51.4-41.1% in the district— and Wall Street Republican Bruce Poliquin easily beat a hapless identity politics laughing stock the Democrats cluelessly decided to run (again). Poliquin beat Emily Cain 192,878 (54.8%) to 159,081 (45.2%). Two years earlier he had beaten her 133,320 (45.2%) to 118,568 (40.2%) in a 3-way race.

This year, the state House whip, Jared Golden, didn’t wait for the DCCC’s— or anyone else’s— blessing. A former front line Marine (Afghanistan and Iraq), he jumped in and ran on a Bernie-like agenda geared towards the district’s working families. The establishment preferred one of their own, hereditary multimillionaire dabbler Lucas St. Claire. Golden beat him 54.3% to 45.7%.

In the first round of general election voting Poliquin led by a little over 1,000 votes— 46.2% to 45.6%, but because neither candidate received 50%, the state’s ranked choice voting system kicked in— at it kicked in before Poliquin lost his lawsuit trying to stop it from going forward. This afternoon, after the final count, Jared was declared the winner, surging past Poliquin by slightly less than 3,000 votes after the ranked-choice votes of two independents in the race were redistributed.

The final vote tally was 139,231 votes for Golden versus 136,326 votes for Poliquin— or 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent.

This is the first time in U.S. history that a congressional race was decided using ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to cast ballots for their favorite candidate but also rank other candidates in order of preference. Those ranked-choice votes only come into play, however, when no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote on the initial tally.

Thursday’s vote tally may not be the end, however. Poliquin is challenging the constitutionality of ranked-choice voting in federal court, and the campaign could ask for a recount of the results.

…Poliquin and three other plaintiffs had asked U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker to declare the ranked-choice process unconstitutional and effectively declare Poliquin the winner. They also asked for Walker to halt the tabulation process until he can consider the constitutionality question.

Walker’s order on Thursday denied the request for immediate intervention but leaves open the possibility of a legal battle over the results.

Walker cited Maine voters’ repeated support for ranked-choice voting in his ruling Thursday.

“As it stands, the citizens of Maine have rejected the policy arguments plaintiffs advance against RCV,” Walker wrote. “Maine voters cast their ballots in reliance on the RCV system. For the reasons indicated above, I am not persuaded that the United States Constitution compels the Court to interfere with this most sacred expression of democratic will by enjoining the ballot-counting process and declaring Representative Poliquin the victor.”

…Of the second-choice votes redistributed Thursday, Golden received 10,232 while 4,695 went to Poliquin. More than 8,000 of the ballots cast for independents did not designate a second choice.

This is the first congressional race in the nation to be decided using the ranked-choice voting process. Maine voters have endorsed the ranked-choice process twice via two separate ballot questions.

Another manifestation of the pernicious Trump Effect: no more Republicans in the House from New England-- and just the very vulnerable Susan Collins, who is up for reelection in 2020, in the Senate. I expect great things from Jared who will hit the ground running, having been the progressive "tip of the spear" in the state legislature and who knows exactly how to get legislation passed in a split government.

Jared by Nancy Ohanian

Ranked Choice Voting, Minority Rule, and Maine's Second Congressional District

Click to enlarge

by Gaius Publius

In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure.

—James Madison, on why a Senate is needed to counterbalance the majoritarian House

Minority rule occurs in a political system when a small group of citizens is able to force its will on the large group of which it is a part. Minority rule describes what we have in the United States. A minority of our citizens, self-styled Republicans, write the rules that govern all of the rest of us — Democrats, independents and non-voters.

Mechanisms for creating and enforcing minority rule are many. In the U.S., those mechanisms start with the U.S. Constitution, which has many anti-majority features, such as the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate. According to the New York Times, for example, "a majority of the Senate now represents just 18 percent of the nation’s population." Because most of that majority, senators from the 25 smallest states, are Republicans, control of the minority-empowering Senate has been achieved by the political party (of the two viable parties) representing the fewest people.

In fact, the original plan for the selection of senators wasn't even by popular vote, but by the various state legislators. The people were to have no direct say at all in who represented them in the Senate — again, by design.

Other anti-majoritarian U.S. institutions include the U.S. Supreme Court, in which five unelected justices can nullify ("declare unconstitutional") any act of Congress they wish without review or appeal; and the Senate filibuster, by which a minority of senators can block passage of bills supported by the majority. Senators representing just 44% of the country recently confirmed the deeply unpopular Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, where he will likely serve for life.

One could easily add the ease of gerrymandering congressional districts to this list. And our elections themselves, in which the winner is determined by whoever gets the most votes, sometimes supports minority rule, since the person getting the most votes doesn't always get a majority of the votes. In as many ways as possible, it seems, the U.S. is designed to be governed by powerful minorities.

So what are the offsets to these anti-majority mechanisms? Obviously, major constitutional reform is needed in more than one area. But one way to avoid rule by the minority in elections is by implementing something called "ranked choice voting."

Watch the short video below to see, first, how ranked choice voting works, and second, how it's working in Maine, where Democrat Jared Golden is in a tight race against a Republican and two independents in the Maine's second district.

Maine is pioneering ranked choice voting in its federal elections this fall and it could change everything about the way that candidates campaign — and win. We take a look at the race for Maine's 2nd Congressional District, where ranked choice voting could decide the race. pic.twitter.com/iBkDRdhFwD

— The Fix (@thefix) October 31, 2018

Notice that even though the measure is called undemocratic by some and even unconstitutional by others, it's neither. The fact that it's mainly opposed by Republicans is an added indicator that it solves at least part of the problem of rule by a minority.

I'd like to emphasize two points before ending. First, our current voting system is called "plurality voting" because a majority is not required to produce a winner; a plurality of the votes cast will do it. Recall that President Clinton won his first election with just 43% of the popular vote (a plurality, not a majority), but 55% of the Electoral College. Ranked choice voting always requires an absolute majority of votes — 50% plus 1 — before a winner is declared.

Second, the argument that ranked choice voting sometimes produces anti-progressive results (i.e., sometimes benefits Republicans and corporate Democrats) is accurate. Ranked choice voting simply enables the will of the majority, whatever that will is at the time the vote is taken. And majorities too sometimes go off the rails.

Yet is that a reason not to support it? After all, if progressives are people who believe in expanding the electorate, rather than just expanding our electorate, it should make simple sense to support and enact ranked choice voting wherever possible.

After all, expanding only our electorate is what Republicans do, right?

GP