The Myth of the Libertarian Spoiler Its true that all other things being equal (which isnt necessarily the case), a liberal-leaning third-party candidate earns more otherwise-Democratic votes and a conservative-leaning third-party candidate earns more would-be-Republican votes. Thats why you see the two-parties act so harshly to keep third parties and independent candidates out of debates, off of ballots, and out of the news coverage. But the Libertarian Party isnt simply on the right or left flank of one of the major parties, like other minor parties. Every poll and study of the question (and there have been several) shows that we pull effectively equally from both major parties, about a third each and the rest are voters who would have abstained from voting, cast another protest vote, etc. For every voter leaning Libertarian but concerned that Democrats are worse than Republicans on the issues important to them, theres a voter who prefers the Libertarians but is on the fence because they really hate the Republicans. When you pull from left, right, and center in near-equal proportion, the net effect on other candidates vying for a plurality win is negligible in all but the extraordinarily closest of races. So after election day, when as is likely the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin pulls more votes than the gap between the Ds and Rs in several races, the losers will inevitably throw a fit about how we stole socially liberal voters from Team Blue or small government voters from Team Red. Just know that the mathematical reality is that a plausible case can not be made for us affecting the outcome unless the total Libertarian vote is at least ten or twenty times, or more, the difference between the top two, because the net effect is so close to being a wash. There are valid and compelling arguments for and against casting a protest vote and its effectiveness, many of which Ive been glad to engage in this election, but in the particular case of the Libertarian Party the allegations of being a spoiler for the closer or better of the two major parties is simply an empirically false proposition.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 03:33:46 +0000
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