Voting Our Egos

Clay Shirky recently argued that there’s no such thing as a protest vote. A third-party vote does no good at all, even as a protest. As his essay rumbles along, Shirky throws out in passing some arguments which are interesting enough by themselves to warrant reading the essay.

First, he argues that the United States’s two-party system is more democratic and hence morally superior to a multi-party system.

Only one coalition can govern at any time; that coalition must be formed at some stage; in the United States the voters form those coalitions during primaries, while in countries such as Britain elected representatives form those coalitions; hence, in the United States the voters do the dirty democratic work, but in other countries the voters hide from this necessity.

I like this argument because I had not heard it before. By this argument, a small-party elected representative does no good at all - there is no advantage to having a representative in Parliament/Congress with a purer version of your politics.

Third Parties in America

This argument reminded me of an old question: what prevents third parties from succeeding in America? Pure political tradition, voter inertia? Given how pissed off most of America seems to be, I feel there must be a more structural reason.

The answer is game theory.

The United States has a plurality-based, single-member, district election system. This is also called first-past-the-post voting, or winner-take-all, and it’s in contrast to proportional representation.

As this video colorfully explains, with many candidates, a winner-take-all voting system imposes minority rule, and it inevitably, unavoidably, leads to a two-party system.

We as individuals vote based not just on what we want, but strategically, based on how we think others will vote. Voting for a third-party candidate hands more power to your furthest ideological opponents. “Don’t throw your vote away,” people say, and they’re not completely wrong.

In fact, a third-party vote is worse than just thrown away. Voting for the candidate closest to your preferences helps ensure the outcome farthest from your preferences! Think Ralph Nader voters - they probably didn’t like Al Gore, but they really, really didn’t like Dubya.

In fact, the Republican party would have been smart to fund Ralph Nader (though I’m not aware of any evidence that they did), and that’s true in general. In a close election, you’d do well to fund your opponent’s closest ideological challenger.

(At this point, Clay Shirky comes in the room to argue that Ralph Nader didn’t teach the Democrats a lesson - their platform remained unchanged following his split-the-party move. Don’t go thinking there’s a silver lining here!)

In the United States, history and power provide a second reason why third parties can’t win - why, as Richard Hofstadter said, they die like a bee after stinging once. Republicans and Democrats use gerrymandering all the time against each other - you really think they wouldn’t do it to a third-party candidate?

Looking at these structural reasons, and playing out the game theory, convinced me that Shirky is essentially right. In the United States, third parties do not and cannot have any lasting effect.

Multi-party Systems

That still leaves me with Shirky’s dig at multi-party systems. Is a two-party system, which leaves many voters with no elected representative remotely close to their beliefs, morally superior to a proportionally representative, multi-party system?

The very fact that Shirky needed to write this essay refutes the mud he throws at multi-party systems. In a two-party system, disaffected citizens like myself don’t vote, or throw away our votes on third-party candidates, because we’re frustrated that we have no meaningful voice in the government. And then Clay Shirky has to sit around and convince us we shouldn’t do that. But a multi-party system provides precisely such an avenue of democractic expression!

Further, to provide just one example, in very recent history in Britain, the government has been forced to share power with a minority party. The Liberal Democrats did need to form a coalition, to do the dirty work of democratic compromise. But that compromise lasted beyond an early-stage primary.

In the United States, candidates must veer to the extremes to win the primaries, and then dance their way back to the middle. The multi-party system seems to have a more lasting, and hence real, effect.

The dirty work of democratic compromise

Here’s one other passing argument that caught my eye. Shirky also argues that not voting, or voting third party, shoves the dirty work of democracy on everyone else. Not everyone can get the candidate they want, and thus everyone must commit to choosing the lesser of two evils. If the lesser evil happens to be someone who makes you happy, so much the better. Content yourself with your lot in life and do your damn duty.

Let’s go back to winner-take-all game theory. We have a two-party system: we can join one of two parties, or have no voice at all. As an inevitable consequence of that fact and of stable demographics, entire states reliably vote one way or the other.

Because I don’t live in a swing state, whatever I vote will be symbolic, even if I join the majority party! (I’m assuming joining the majority party counts for more participation than voting for the opposition party)

By voting Republican in Texas, or Democrat in New York, am I really joining in “the work of deciding,” to use Shirky’s phrase? No - that’s just as much a “fantasy that [my] vote will make a difference” as voting third party.

Except for the spiel about why having an elected Libertarian or Green representative would give you less rather than more democracy, Shirky’s essay changed my mind about third parties. No one is listening to our protest votes - ours, my friends, is a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

Nevertheless, in our two-party system, there’s no way to join in the work of deciding unless I vote in the primaries or move to a swing state. And that’s why, come Election Day, I’ll vote my ego.