The Red and Black

Issue date: 7/24/08 Section: Opinions

MATT BRANDENBURGH

Those who follow this page probably know me by now as a strong supporter of Ron Paul. Before the time when I came to understand and agree with his policies, I was a fairly strong Democrat. I have volunteered on the campaigns of several Democrats, including John Kerry, and never even thought of voting for a Republican before Paul. Now I'm to where there is one Republican I would vote for, but I do not identify with either party.

Being a supporter of a "fringe" candidate this year instead of the headlining candidates of either party has taught me a few lessons about politics in general, and caused me to ponder some of the beliefs governing the political thinking of many Americans, especially about the role of minor candidates.

The most common response I got from people after stating my support for Paul was, "But he's not going to win." I've had this discussion many times: how can I justify voting for a candidate who admittedly has got very little chance of winning? This argument, which most have surely encountered at least once, is wrong for a couple of reasons.

There seems to be a sense of satisfaction people get from having picked the candidate who wins. But an election is not a sweepstakes, it is not a contest to guess the number of M&M's in a big jar and win a prize. There isn't a reward for "getting it right." The goal of voting is not to pick the winner but to announce your preference for who should hold the office.

This argument also rests on the widely-held political belief that voting third-party is equivalent to "throwing your vote away." As someone who has used this argument in the past, once I had it turned on me, I began to re-examine it. I wanted to see if it meant I really should not vote for someone like Paul, even though I agree with him more than the other top candidates.

Essentially what this argument amounts to is saying that unless the candidate you vote for wins, your vote counts for nothing; it is wholly wasted. Though this seems coherent, if not logical, on the surface, a minute's reconsideration shows it to be untrue.

How does someone who uses this argument to justify voting for one of the major party candidates figure his/her vote actually does count in the end?

The only way a single vote would make a difference in an election is if only one vote separated the winner from the second-place finisher; and in that case, since the switching of any vote to the second-place finisher or away from the winner would change the outcome, each vote counts equally, third-party or not.

Since one vote has never made the difference in a presidential election, (or any other election I'm aware of), any given major party voter's individual vote was as worthless as any vote for the Green Party, the Constitution Party, or the Prohibition Party.

In other words, someone who wields this false argument to demean third party voters by saying their votes were "thrown away" should realize that his/her vote has never truly mattered either - history would have been unchanged if they'd just stayed home every time.

Pessimistic as that sounds, what I take this to mean is that everyone should vote and vote honestly. I find that the only honest way to cast a vote is to vote for someone who you genuinely wish to have as your leader, leaving behind all the artificial criteria like party affiliation, family name or height (look up "heightism" on Wikipedia if you don't believe me) that so often seem to trump the issues.

It is our obligation to be active in our country's politics by voting, but I have learned that voting intelligently means, for one thing, disregarding party.

-Matt Brandenburgh is opinions editor for The Red & Black.

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