Yesterday, we had some strong differences in opinion in comments to this article about Nader’s decision to run for President. If you are familiar with a parliamentary system, you may have a hard time understanding how this might upset Americans. If you are not familiar with a parliamentary system, you may have a hard time understanding a foreign perspective on this. So in the interest of promoting mutual understanding, I shall endeavor to explain the differences and relate them to the current situation.
In a parliamentary system, the chief executive, usually the Prime Minister, is not elected directly. Voters elect a legislator from their district from among several parties. When the legislature convenes, if one party has a majority of legislators, they can form a government directly, appointing their party leader as Prime Minister. If not, negotiations take place between the parties until they can cut a deal that a majority of legislators will back and form a government behind a PM that may or may not the leader of one of the parties.
Say that voters in an parliamentary nation split between one right wing party, which we’ll call the Reich, and two left wing parties which we’ll call Populist and Progressive. And say the popular vote splits 35%, 34% and 31% respectively. Although the Reich may have won the plurality, 65% of the voters expressed a preference for the left. The legislators elected under such a system should be in approximately the same ratio and one may reasonably assume that the resulting government will be leftist.
In the US, the president is not elected directly either. But the manner of indirect election is completely different. Electors are appointed on a state by state basis in a single member plurality system in which the winner of the plurality of that state is awarded all the electors for the entire state. here are two exceptions, Maine and Nebraska, in which the plurality winner of each electoral district within the state gets the elector for that district. I described our system in ore detail, HERE.
Using the same example as before, with 35% Reich, 34% Populist and 31% Progressive, under the US system the Reich would win the presidency, even though 65% of the voters expressed a preference for the left. Is our system flawed? You bet it is, but until and unless it is changed, we will have two dominant parties and the only role a 3rd party candidate can have is that of spoiler.
The US system is further complicated by differences between the two parties. Organizing Democrats is like herding cats. Democratic voters tend to be highly varied and independent, while Republicans are more “I’ll bend over and say ba-a-a-a-a-a while you bang me in the butt” types. This makes Democrats more vulnerable to defection to 3rd parties. In addition, most states are “safe” for one party or the other. New York and California will go Democratic. Alabama and Mississippi will go Republican. The election will be decided in a few swing states that could go either way.
And that’s what happened in 2000. It can justly be argued that Al Gore won Florida and the GOP state government under Jeb Bush manipulated the vote counting and stole the election, because that’s the truth. However in Florida, Ralph Nader had 96,837 votes, most of whom would have voted for Gore, had Nader not run. Had those voters voted for Gore, the election could not have been close enough tor the GOP to manipulate the vote counting enough to produce a 537 vote win for GW Bush.
Nationwide, Ralph Nader polled less than 1/3 of 1% of the popular vote. Under a parliamentary system, there is no way such an insignificant candidate could tip the entire course of a national election. Under our flawed system it did happen, so it’s only natural for US voters to be highly concerned that it might happen again, and highly irate at the candidate who played the role of spoiler once and is willing to do so again.
In my opinion, a more progressive third party is a worthy goal for the future, but in order to make it work, we must first change the way in which politicians are elected to a more equitable system. That is a long process. It begins by putting progressives who favor such a system in office at the local and state levels and gathering strength until the change can be made on a state by state and finally a national basis. I’m all for starting in December.
But in the meantime, Ralph Nader is a threat to our nation. If he could win, I’d be at the front of the line to support him, but he can’t. The more successful he is, the more likely he is to repeat the debacle of 2000.
Inserted from Politics Plus
