Politics - Voting Third Party in a Non-swing State
An explanation of why I choose to vote thrid party while living in a firmly non-swing state
My Background With Politics
I was raised in a firmly Democratic household, in a firmly Democratic city, with a stepfather who is an attorney who taught labor law, and was formerly a union organizer and union attorney. It was a firmly lefty and pro-union home.
Politics were discussed in our home, but statements without backing sources were met with harsh criticism. An example of this is that one day I came home and over dinner declared that Ronald Reagan was a fascist, an idea that I probably picked up from a punk rock lyric. My stepfather, who was certainly no fan of Reagan, could have let it pass.
He did not.
I was questioned as to my knowledge of the definition of "fascism" and in what ways that definition applied to our president (shockingly, I had neither.) This is one example, but I could give many as I was a bit slow to learn my lesson here, but eventually I did learn it and now I usually have sources for my ideas and am transparent when I do not have any.
My very Republican grandfather didn't really talk to me about politics, but he did instill in me a love of fishing and hunting, and he did want me to experience rural life, especially the rural areas that he grew up in (South Dakota) which gave me a connection to a place with very Republican values.
Because my hobbies include martial arts, self defense and hunting, I have spent a lot of time with people who I respect a lot who do not share my liberal point of view, and who are conservatives. Because of my upbringing, I was always eager to hear if they had evidence and reasoning behind why they held a view that was different than my own, and so I hold some views and entertain some positions that surprise my friends and don't fall along party lines.
My Issues With the Democratic Party
I have been a lifelong Democrat, and have been actively voting ever since I turned 18, however I feel that the Democratic party has chosen the wrong path on a number of civil liberties issues, especially in their attempts to circumvent the First, Second and Fourth amendments to the US Constitution. I'm not saying that I think the Republican party cares about protecting those rights, but I'm not a Republican living in a Republican controlled state, so I'll focus on my actual situation, and how that affects my choices when voting.
When it comes to the First and Fourth Amendment, I feel that the Patriot Act gives the government far too much warrant-less access to data, the no-fly list is a nightmare with neither due process nor congressional oversight, and the vague definitions of terrorism are prone to abuse. This is exactly the sort of government action that the Constitution is meant to protect against, yet our judges and lawmakers do nothing.
I am not alone in thinking that the Patriot Act is in gross violations of both of them and this concern is shared by many in both liberal and conservative circles. Both the ACLU and the Constitutional Rights Foundation agree that the Patriot act is unconstitutional. Rand Paul has been a staunch opponent of the act, the Libertarian party is obviously strongly against it, and getting rid of it was one of Barack Obama's campaign promises and a big part of why I voted for Obama the first time he ran for president, because I believed him. Unfortunately that was one of the campaign promises that he broke, which is a big part of why I started to vote for third parties.
If you are really averse to reading sources other than blogs, here's a video clip from 2015 where France24 (French National news channel) spend three minutes discussing the Patriot Act:
In addition to my issues with how the Democratic party has acted when it comes to the First and Fourth amendments, I take serious issue with how they act when it comes to the Second amendment.
I don't want to get into a discussion about if any restrictions at all should be applied to constitutional rights (it is settled law that those rights can be restricted in some ways) however most on the left would agree that restricting a constitutional right by means of a financial or class based obstacle is not acceptable.
This is shown by the strong (and in my opinion correct) opposition from most on the left to placing financial obstacles in the way of the Fifteenth Amendment (like poll taxes and other methods) or the Fourteenth Amendment.
Many Democratically controlled cities and states, who have enacted "common sense" gun laws, do exactly that. I don't think it's OK at all, and I can't support politicians who feel that it is OK, when perfectly acceptable alternate solutions exist.
To give only one example (because gun rights are not the topic at hand) in my opinion having a law requiring safe storage of a firearm is a financial obstacle, however if one was to provide lock boxes from the state (or a voucher towards the sale of one) then one can have the restriction without placing a financial obstacle on a constitutional right.
Why I Choose To Vote Third Party
I have explained that I have some serious concerns about how the Democratic party is approaching certain issues, and in the races that I get to vote in (NYC and NY State) the seats will go to a Democrat (or in a rare occurrence to a "Republican" like Michael Bloomberg, in which case none of this applies) so voting for a Democrat that one doesn't strongly support accomplishes nothing politically other than reinforcing the status quo. To be crystal clear, if you really support a candidate, then by all means vote for them!
The situation I am talking about is where I can't say that I really support the candidate who has been nominated from "my" party and I have to make a choice as to how get my voice heard.
If we have as our base assumptions that the Democratic candidate will win, that the Democratic party is going to pay close attention to post-election statistical data, and that there is a message that we want to send to them, then it starts to make sense to do two things:
Register as a Democrat
Vote for a third party that is strongest on the issue where you feel most strongly that the Democrats are failing.
Now I will admit that I have no direct knowledge of the statistics that the party looks at, but I think that they know how many registered Democrats voted for the Green party for instance (if not from actual poll data, then from exit polls and the general numbers and trends.)
When they see that number growing, they know that they could probably have most of those votes back if they improved their stance on environmentalism. I would welcome some feedback from those with direct knowledge on this. Nonetheless, I feel that this is my best way to get my concerns heard under the current system (and yes I write to elected officials too and let them know that I vote third party and why.)
I should also note that I vote in every primary, research each candidate as much as I can, and vote for the candidate who best represents my interests. I do this because in the primaries my vote actually does count for something.
Comments and questions I have gotten when discussing this topic
If I vote for the Libertarian party (who I have voted for) I don't have to agree with all of their policies, because they are not going to win. Unfortunately all third party votes (at least the ones I get to cast) are by nature symbolic and can only serve to send a statistical message. In this case the Libertarian party's heavy focus is on defending civil liberties, so the Democratic party can take the message that when they lose a registered voter to the Libertarians it's due to their failings when it comes to respecting civil liberties.
Yes. Or the Green party, or the Libertarians, but that's not going to happen. That sort of change doesn't happen overnight, and if enough registered Democrats started voting third party you can bet that the party would react before it was drastic enough for the Republicans to start winning extremely safe seats.
Untrue, in fact it's more that the harsh truth is that I get no say in who gets elected president, so I choose to send a message with my vote. I would say that I care quite a bit actually, only I'm trying to work for a system where we get better candidates.
I'm quite clear in that I feel that it is important to gauge your local elections before taking this step. A wealth of statistical data like 270 to Win and Statistica are available online, so it should be pretty easy to determine if your elections are locked into a particular party (the first of those links has a "Margin of Victory Map" that is very useful in that regard.
I voted in NY state in the 2016 election, and I voted for the Libertarian candidate for the reasons above. My vote was symbolic and had no effect on the outcome of the NY state electoral college votes, nor did it help Trump get elected in any way.