Third Parties

2020 ◽  
pp. 218-245
Author(s):  
Robert C. McMath
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Party System ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Theodore Roosevelt ◽  
Minor Parties ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Legislative Districts ◽  
Egalitarian Ethos ◽  
Take All

Since the 1830s the American two-party system has included other minor parties. This essay describes eleven of them, beginning with the Anti-Masonic Party and ending with Ross Perot’s Reform Party. The most noteworthy of the group include the American (Know-Nothing), Free Soil, People’s (Populist), Progressive, American Independent, and Reform parties. Third parties in America have always suffered from structural arrangements that included single-member legislative districts and “winner take all” election rules, and yet they have persisted. Between the 1830s and 1890s most parties grew out of populistic movements that espoused an egalitarian ethos and railed against entrenched elites. Around 1900, movement-based parties began to give way to “interest group” organizations, but in the twentieth century three third parties led by strong individuals (Theodore Roosevelt [1912], George C. Wallace [1968], and H. Ross Perot [1992]) received 27, 13, and 19 percent of the popular vote for president, respectively.

A Feasible Reform

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Edward B. Foley
Keyword(s):  
New Hampshire ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Rust Belt ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Take All

Each state already has the constitutional power to require that candidates win a majority of the popular vote to receive all of the state’s electoral votes. Each state could adopt the kind of runoff that New Hampshire used in the past, or instant runoff voting. There is no need for a multistate compact. If only two or three states had used runoffs, or instant runoff voting, in 2016—for example, Florida and Michigan, or the three Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—and if Clinton had won those runoffs, then she would have been president. In the future, it might be a Republican candidate who prevails in runoffs in pivotal states but would lose using plurality winner-take-all. States with ballot initiatives can use them to require majority rule for appointing electors as long as they leave the specific details to legislation.

Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election

1965 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip E. Converse ◽  
Aage R. Clausen ◽  
Warren E. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Theodore Roosevelt ◽  
Small Measure ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
Franklin Delano Roosevelt ◽  
General Range ◽  
Margin Of Victory

On Election Day, 1964, the aspirations of Senator Barry Goldwater and the conservative wing of the Republican Party were buried under an avalanche of votes cast for incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. The margin of victory, approaching 16 million votes, was unprecedented. Historical comparisons with other presidential landslides are left somewhat indeterminate by the intrusion of third parties. However, it is safe to observe that Johnson's 61.3 percent of the two-party popular vote put him in the same general range as the striking victories of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936, Harding in 1920, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.Before the fact, the election was also expected to be the most intensely ideological campaign since 1936, in no small measure because of Goldwater's reputation as a “pure” conservative. After the fact, doubts existed as to whether this expectation had been fulfilled. Goldwater supporters, in particular, expressed disappointment that President Johnson had refused to join battle on any of the fundamental ideological alternatives that were motivating the Goldwater camp.

Electoral College Winner's Advantage

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 353-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack E. Riggs ◽  
Gerald R. Hobbs ◽  
Todd H. Riggs
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Electoral Vote ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All ◽  
Margin Of Victory

Compared to the popular vote, the Electoral College magnifies the perception of the winner's margin of victory. In this analysis, a method of quantifying the magnitude of the advantage given to the winner due to the Electoral College's two electoral vote add-on and winner-take-all methodologies is presented. Using the electoral vote distribution that was present in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, we analyzed one million random two-candidate simulated elections. The results show that the net effect of the Electoral College is to give the winning candidate an average 29.45 electoral vote advantage per election due to the winner-take-all methodology. This winner's advantage includes an average 0.42 electoral vote advantage given to the winner per election due to the two electoral vote add-on.

The 3/2's Rule in Presidential Campaigning

1974 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Brams ◽  
Morton D. Davis
Keyword(s):  
District Of Columbia ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Optimal Allocations ◽  
Presidential Campaigning ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

The purpose of this article is to assess the effect of the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College on the allocation of resources by candidates to the states in a presidential campaign. Conceptualizing the campaign as a two-person zero-sum infinite game, it is found that the main effect of this feature is to induce candidates to allocate campaign resources roughly in proportion to the 3/2's power of the electoral votes of each state, which creates a peculiar bias that makes voters living in the largest states as much as three times as attractive campaign targets as voters living in the smallest states. Empirically, it is shown that the 3/2's rule explains quite well the time allocations of presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972 campaigns; for presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980, optimal allocations are indicated for all fifty states and the District of Columbia. A comparison with optimal allocations under a system of direct popular-vote election of the president reveals that such a system would be less susceptible to manipulative strategies than the Electoral College as well as being compatible with the egalitarian principle of “one man, one vote.”

The Collapse of the Four-Party System and the Rise of Zero-Sum Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
Lee Drutman
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Party System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Culture War ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
Partisan Competition ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Trench Warfare ◽  
Take All

This chapter explains the role that America’s political institutions had in separating the party coalitions and raising the stakes. In an earlier era, when parties were looser coalitions, America had a hidden four-party system-with Liberal Democrats, Conservative Democrats, Liberal Republicans, and Conservative Republicans. This created space for more fluid and flexible coalitions that differed on an issue by issue basis. Especially from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s, this allowed for broadly responsive policymaking. However, as politics nationalized around "culture war" questions, conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans began to go extinct. Given the winner-take-all nature of elections, parties shrunk to their separate geographic cores, becoming much more distinct. The close balance of power nationally turned national partisan competition into trench warfare, with an increasingly dysfunctional Congress as ground zero.

An Exploration of Alternatives

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Edward B. Foley
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

A constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College is not feasible, at least for the foreseeable future. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact plan, as a method of nullifying the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment, is a seriously flawed idea for several reasons, the most significant of which is that it would award the presidency to a plurality winner of the national popular vote. Thus, if there were a three-way split in the popular vote—for example, 43 percent, 42 percent, 15 percent—the compact would award the presidency to the candidate with 43 percent even though 57 percent of the electorate strongly opposed that candidate. The fear that an independent candidate could cause Trump’s re-election even when roughly 60 percent of voters oppose this, because the opposition is split among two (or more) candidates, applies equally to the existing system and the compact. Litigation is unlikely to eliminate plurality winner-take-all. States must act.

The Electoral College Exacerbates the Red–Blue Divide and Disenfranchises Ethnic Minorities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory D. Webster
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Voting Power ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Electoral Vote ◽  
College System ◽  
Electoral Power ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

Because of increasingly skewed populations among the 50 United States, the Electoral College is increasingly more likely to produce a winner with a minority of the popular vote. Not only has the Electoral College become a less accurate reflection of the popular vote over time, but it also suppresses the voting power of racial and ethnic minorities in U.S. presidential elections. First, as a consequence of the winner-take-all Electoral College system, states with smaller populations are allotted disproportionately high weights, such that their per-capita voting power per electoral vote is substantially greater than that of states with larger populations. For example, in 2004, residents of the least-populous state, Wyoming (164,594 people per electoral vote), had over 3.74 times the electoral power of residents in the most-populous state, California (615,848 people per electoral vote). Second, states with larger populations have a larger percentage of ethnic minorities (r = .43, p = .002). Third, if one controls for population differences, the Whiter a state is, the more electoral votes it receives. Fourth, the Whiter a state is, the more electoral power it has in terms of a lower population-per-electoral-vote ratio (r = -.37, p = .008; r = -.52, p < .001 if outlier Hawaii, with only 23% non-Hispanic/Latino Whites, is excluded). Thus, the red-versus-blue dichotomy engendered by the winner-take-all Electoral College system not only disenfranchises opinion minorities, but also systemically disenfranchises racial and ethnic minorities seeking to stake a claim on the presidential political landscape. [Abstract written August 4, 2020.]

A Calamitous Compact

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (04) ◽  
pp. 791-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darin DeWitt ◽  
Thomas Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Plurality Rule ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
State Law ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Election System ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All ◽  
Do So

ABSTRACTThe National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (joined so far by ten states and DC) would replace the current presidential-election system, based on the electoral college and the winner-take-all rule, with nationwide plurality rule, and it would do so by changes in state law, not a Constitutional amendment. The mischief that would create (especially procedural instability, noncompliant electors, nation-wide recounts, vote manipulation, and narrowed support), the compact’s questionable Constitutionality, the weakness of its defense, and the availability of less calamitous alternatives are reasons enough to reject it.

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