The June 2006 Journal of Politics carries a political science article titled, “The Decline of Third Party Voting in the United States.” The authors are Professor Shigeo Hirano of Columbia, and Professor James M. Snyder of MIT. The article can be read here.
The article covers the period 1890 to the present. The title is misleading. The article says that third parties polled high shares of the vote between 1890 and 1920, and then low shares 1940-1970, and since 1970 it has risen again. The article seems not to discuss the period 1920-1940. The article is somewhat confusing because the authors never say whether they are including independent candidates in their study. They use the terms “two party system” and “third party” but don’t define either one.
The article introduces the idea that ballot access barriers may be responsible for the decline between 1920 and the period 1940-1970, but then they shy away from trying to determine if ballot access barriers are responsible for the decline. They say, “Ballot access restrictions varied across states over time. The information on specific ballot access restrictions is not readily available and consequently is not used in our analysis.” Of course, it is readily available, and was published in Richard Winger’s article in the Election Law Journal, vol. 5, no. 2. Appendix “F” gives the number of signatures needed for new party or independent candidate ballot access, for each state, for the entire period starting in 1892. But Professors Hirano and Snyder were apparently unaware of that resource.
UPDATE: the authors advise that they did include independent candidates in their compilation.
The impossible part to analyze being how many candidates simply don’t try because they foresee the considerable challenge of obtaining signatures.
In all my time as a political science student I studied comparative politics, international economy, theory and a host of other derivatives (implementation, state & local etc.) and ballot access was never mentioned, explored or considered. This is the Tragedy of Political Science.
I would be willing to help with a statistical analysis of their data and the data in Richard’s article (Election Law Journal, vol. 5, no. 2. Appendix “Fâ€). If we can get their data that is.
I have not read this article, however, generally speaking, I have found that there are no people in the world more stupid about practical politics than college Political Science professors. I have a degree in Political Science and I cannot think of anything more useless in this world. Political Science doesn’t prepare you one bit for politics and for any of you considering law its completelely useless for that as well. Not that anybody asked.
Politics was always better learned in smoke filled rooms rather than classrooms.
Eric’s point in his first paragraph above is a good one. Also, how many voters in a state where a national candidate is on the ballot don’t vote for that candidate because they realize that the candidate is not on all the state ballots, so they believe it is a futile act? Is there a way to quantify that?
The authors claim that between 1940 and 1970, in no state did the third party vote for Governor, US Senator or Congress exceed 10% in any state. This is clearly wrong.
In 1940, Sen LaFollette,Jr was re-elected as a Progressive in Wisconsin; a Progressive was elected Governor of Wisconsin in 1942; Farmer-Labor candidates in Minnesota in 1940 & 1942 received over 30%.
In 1968 James Buckley received 17% running for Senator on the New York Conservative ticket, and he was elected with 39% in 1970. It is hard to believe the authors did not have this information.