on voting 3rd party

TL; DR: our "winner take all" system for choosing elected officials only supports a two-party system.  when a third-party gains traction, it actually pulls *against* democracy because the direction that party leans bleeds votes off the most similar of the two parties, ending up electing the party that most of the voters don't want.

 

found this article in "America's Coloring Book" the USA Today, from a well-meaning young person who is clearly out of ideas when it comes to promoting the libertarian party in her corner of florida:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/09/21/republican-democrat-political-parties-voting-third-party-column/3484822001/

in short, the author is simply wrong.  and i don't mean wrong, as in, i have a different opinion.  

no, i mean wrong as in mathematically wrong.

and in doing so, she misses the point and hurts her cause.

during an election, you tend to have 1-n candidates for each office.  typically this means you have 2 candidates, democrat and republican.  if there are more candidates, they either list themselves as independent, or with some other party like green, libertarian, democratic socialist, or straight up socialist, or what have you.

in our voting system, whoever in that list gets the most votes wins.  
simple, right?
fair, right?
straight up democracy, the people have spoken, it's all good.

sometimes a party pulls from the edge of another party.  for example, the green party tends to pull from the far left of the democratic party.  in 1992 ross perot's independent run for president was built on a conservative platform that pulled mostly from bush and the republicans, which contributed to clinton being elected with only 43% of the popular vote.  

in short, a strong 3rd party "splits the vote" away from the platform that americans mostly want.

problem is those 3rd parties are typically a mix of ideals that other parties partially share.  for example, the libertarian party is an interesting 3rd party because it appeals to certain aspects of democrats (socially progressive) and republicans (small, short reaching gov't).

but in the end, given the way our elections work (most votes wins) voting for a 3rd party actually quite often helps the candidate that you dislike the most, and we collectively would not have elected.  for example, it's arguable that if ross perot had not entered the 1992 race, bush would have been re-elected, and bill clinton would've been sent back to arkansas.

even in the case of a libertarian candidate, whichever way we as a nation collectively lean, good chance the election will go away from that lean, not toward it.

for example:

a. if you're voting for the libertarian, but consider trump the "lesser of two evils", you're actually helping biden.  

b. if you're voting for the libertarian, but consider biden the "lesser of two evils", you're actually helping trump.

the only way voting for the libertarian gets the libertarian elected is if you get at least 30% maybe 40% of the voters to vote that way, and too many voters consider the risk to be too high.  that's when you hit the prisoner's dilemma.

the only way you open up elections, for any office, at any level of government, to 3rd parties is to change the voting system.  instead of one vote per office, you have one vote per candidate.  you rank the candidates.  if you want to vote libertarian, but consider democrat as the lesser of two evils, you can vote libertarian as 1, democrat as 2, and then if you want, the republican as 3, or 4, or maybe 7, depending on how many candidates there are.

the reason we don't have that system is due to the fact that keeping a solid two party system is the only thing the two dominant parties currently agree upon, ironically.

the libertarian party has been spinning their wheels in the mud for decades now, trying to get the attention they feel they deserve.  their weak hand, which they think is their strong hand, is to appeal to americans' dissatisfaction with the two major parties, asking them to vote their conscience.  problem is, again, due to the prisoner's dilemma, collective inertia is too strong, and motivating at minimum 15-20% of voters to shift is herculean.  and it's not only that.  recalling perot again, while he did grab 19% of the popular vote, he was never the winner of any state, so pulled down a whopping zero, that's right zero, electoral votes.  not even one vote from a state that allows apportionment.  

that kind of appeal is not going to change things.  the only thing that will help libertarians, or any 3rd party for that matter, is a change to the voting system.  and since legislation is never going to do it, the only appeal left is for the courts, including scotus, the declare the current system unconstitutional.  which up until now, it's not.

no answers here.  no proposed solutions.  just a short exercise in exploring why 3rd parties are doomed given the current systems in place.