Carl Pope, former head of the Sierra Club, has this opinion piece at Salon. He says that anyone who runs outside the two major parties for president “is an enemy of democracy.” The chance that Howard Schultz might run for president motivated this story. Pope does not even mention the idea of Ranked Choice Voting. UPDATE: the title of the piece has been changed, so that instead of proclaiming that Schultz is an enemy of democracy, it asks if he is, and the title ends with a question mark.
The only reason Maine became the first state to use Ranked Choice Voting for federal office is because Maine had two gubernatorial elections in a row in which an independent candidate for Governor was perceived as a “spoiler.” Democrats hold both houses of the legislature and the Governorship in 14 states. If Democrats really believe that a strong independent candidate for President will be a “spoiler”, then rationally they should pass bills for Ranked Choice Voting. And for prominent voices like Pope to write an entire essay without even mentioning this idea is incomprehensible.
CP = one more MORON.
Both so-called major parties are THE REAL Enemies of Democracy with their corrupt tyrant minority rule gerrymanders and unequal ballot access laws.
ALL folks ready for Civil WAR II ???
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PR and AppV
I gave them a piece of my mind in the comments section. And included both Ranked Choice Voting and Proportional Representation and some of the countries which use such methods.
Unfortunately, I can comprehend why this former Sierra Club now “Democratic” Party hack didn’t mention RCV. The goal of his article was to shame and intimidate third party candidates and any potential supporters of them. He and others like him have no interest in reforming the system; it works just fine, allowing both ruling parties to easily stifle any potential outside competition.
One point about ranked choice voting for Presidential electors has not been emphasized enough: you don’t need many states to adopt it: just the key swing states like Ohio, Michigan and Florida. It’s the swing states that are typically decided by less than 50% in any Presidential election, which makes them prime candidates for RCV.
Former head of a duopoly loving, money sucking #GangGreen environmentalist group. That said, even those more left of Gang Green largely suck on labor rights. I know several stories about Center for Biological Diversity, for example.
Well, as the author whose piece in Salon is being commented on, it’s first important to understand that I never used the phrase “enemy of democracy.” Those quotation marks were simply invented. I said that, because of the 12th amendment, third party candidacies undermine democracy — which is very different.
As for ranked choice voting, I cheerfully use it as a resident of San Francisco, and am delighted that we are testing it at the local and state level. But it does not, without a constitutional amendment, solve the problem of a three way election for President. It’s quite possible for three candidates each to receive electoral votes, even if every state uses ranked choice elections. Ranked choice voting enables a given outcome — in this the award of a state’s electoral college votes — to be more democratically allocated. That’s great — but doesn’t solve the Presidential problem. State by state such an outcome would be highly democratic. But we don’t allow a Presidential candidate to win with a plurality of the electoral college — and until we do, any three way race can only elect whichever one of the existing major parties controls the majority of House delegations — which will never be the independent or third party candidate. I think this is an apalling situation — but it is the reality that Howard Schultz must examine.
Again — for brain dead math MORONS from Hell — of which there are too many to count —
1/2 or less votes x 1/2 gerrymander areas = 1/4 or less CONTROL = OLIGARCHY.
ALL States — ALL 3 USA regime gerrymander systems – Reps, Sens, Prez/VP —
IT SHOWS — See Civil WAR II setup in 2017-2021 Trump regime of MORONS.
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PR and AppV – pending Condorcet [RCV done correctly]
Condorcet — akin to MEP — Method of Equal Proportions — advanced math used to apportion USA Reps among States — ie fractional members via Census stats.
Again Carl Pope — I now see that the editors at Salon did use the phrase “enemy of democracy”. I would not have. After all, Schultz is not yet even running — headlines can be problematic, And this one was unfair. I apologize.
Dear Mr. Pope, thanks for your good comment. You surely have enough pull with Salon to persuade Salon to give your piece a better title. I realize authors frequently don’t control the title, but if you complain to Salon, they would probably re-title it.
There are two problems that have been mingled together. There is the well-publicized fear among Democrats that in swing states, Schultz would increase the chances of Trump winning. Ranked choice voting would completely solve that problem.
The other problem is that the US Constitution says if no one gets a majority of the electoral vote, the US House picks the president, with each state getting one vote. But your sources indicate that Schultz would not get any electoral votes, so that is not a real problem.
Thanks Richard. Had already asked Salon to change title — we’ll see. But I’m not sure where you conclude that my sources think Schultz will get no electoral votes — I have no opinion. Yes, ranked choice voing solves the problem of a marginal third party candidate, like Nader — I get that. But my column was directed at Schultz, and granted him his premise, which is that he is a serious candidate — which actually makes him more certain to elect Trump — it’s counter intuitive, but people who run for President need to read the constitution. Nader, I think, wanted to be a spoiler. Schutlz I understand does not.
Nader didn’t want to be a spoiler (thanks for casting aspersions on the man), and he, in fact, wasn’t, as every single study shows that more Democrats voted for Bush in Florida then any ever voted for Nader. Blame the sucky campaign of Gore and stop with the spoiler nonsense. Monica Moorehead of the Worker’s World Party (which is also better than the Democratic Party) got more votes than the margin. Maybe she was the real “spoiler”.
In fact, every candidate on the ballot got more votes than the margin of victory in Florida in 2000. Were they all “spoilers”?
Thanks for getting the title changed somewhat, so that it now asks if Howard Schultz is an enemy of democracy, instead of proclaiming that he is.
Saying that “third-party candidacies undermine democracy”, undermines democracy. What do you think elections are for?
A former president of a lobbying group for one of the Democratic party’s special interests thinks that anyone who isn’t a democrat being elected is “undermining democracy” thanks for the clarification Carl Pope. You are undermining democracy with this attempt at intimidating candidates and voters.
The 12th Amendment should be replaced.
(1) Apportion among the Unired States and their territories on the basis of citizen population over the age of 18, with at least one elector per 50,000 such persons.
(2) Require popular election of presidential electors, giving Congress, time, place, manner authority – just like they have for Congress.
(3) Require electors to meet as a single body, and choose the president by majority vote.
(4) House of Representative choose Vice President from among Senators.
(5) Repeal 23rd Amendment.
I don’t understand Pope’s analysis of the 1860 election.
Which four states is he going to flip?
Democracy = Majority Rule, direct/indirect — nothing more/less.
NOT any stuff about good/bad RESULTS – in laws / law enforcement.
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See Nixon 1972 election – after all sorts of FELONIES in 1972-1974 – Watergate Conspiracy.
The MORON story has —
No presidential candidate has ever received an Electoral College majority with less than 45 percent of the popular vote.
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sorry- MORON
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_presidential_election
Clinton 43.0 PCT — due to the EGO MORON Perot.
Also —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_presidential_election
Lincoln – 39.8 PCT >>> 1861-1865 Civil WAR I — 0.75-1.0 MILLION DEAD —
the REAL COST to get later 13-14-15 Amdts.
Just enough New Age MORONS with their MORON brains writing MORON stories.
JD can do the Lincoln votes MINUS second highest in each State — in rank order – low to high.
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Regardless of ALL MORONS who love DARK AGE stuff — like the gerrymander math in the 1787 USA Const —
PR and AppV
Typo – JD >> JR
I would like to thank Carl Pope for not only taking the time to come on here and comment, but also support reforms like Ranked Choice Voting. I also apologize for my rather strongly worded initial comments concerning the article and what I supposed were Carl’s beliefs. I’m still not letting the editors at Salon off the hook though.
It’s very very fascinating. Just to add into the mix, I ran as a third party candidate under American’s Elect. This was at a time in the election process where the competition was Santorum vs. Obama. A group of centrist voters raised 30mm and started the first online voting group. There was a loophole in the constitution that allowed a third party candidate to get onto the national stage. My goal was to get on the national stage and use my time to challenge the candidates to stop spinning and answer the questions. The process was ELECTRIFYING. I had over 30 plus college graduates who jumped into help me. We were in offices on the Google Campus. Here is what I found. The technology that was used by Americans Elect was the backend “engine” of E trade. The tech was flawed because the integration of the DMV records with the engine, did not work effectively. Either by flawed tech or by the choice of the operating group. I am uncertain. At one point, I suggested to https://www.americanselect.org/ that we get tech companies involved to solve the “Software” issue. There were millions of people involved in the process, there were facebook sites and lots of energy. Ultimately what happened is there was a threshold by which one of the candidates had to get so many votes to be the person getting the national stage. No one could get to that threshold because the tech was either flawed or controlled.
What was so fascinating about the process, was that I was in the race as the only non-politician. And the only female. No matter what role I was in, either 2nd, 3rd or 4th… I was invisible. The press when they talked about top candidates, they would skip me. I had money. Yet those who worked for the democratic party said, they could not help me because they would never get work again. Period. Even the producer of Rachel Maddow turned me down. So that said, the status quo does NOT want to change the system. It works for them.
By the way, when Americans Elect pulled the plug. The loophole in the constitution was closed.
Each incumbent robot party HACK loves the about 20-30 percent IT gets in a primary — and later gets elected in a rigged gerrymander area.
Works for them —
see olde 1980s Hunter TV cop show.
IE – ENTIRE *system* is totally ROTTED.
NO primaries.
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PR and AppV
“I said that, because of the 12th amendment, third party candidacies undermine democracy — which is very different.”
People who decide to run for office, to represent people who aren’t being represented by the corrupt, out of touch parties and campaigns, are PARTICIPANTS in democracy.
People like this awful Pope hack are the ones undermining democracy.