Buy My Vote
It’s three days until the election, until one of two terrible candidates will be elected to my nation’s highest office. My ballot has been sitting upon my desk for the last couple of weeks, and is nearly complete. There’s only one section yet unfilled, because I have not been able to complete it in good conscience.
The section I’m referring to, of course, is that where I am to cast a vote to express whom I would prefer to become President of the United States of America.
I live in Colorado, so there are 22 names on my ballot in the “Presidential Electors” box, plus a checkbox and a line where I can write in the name of my preferred candidate. There are at least a couple of good people listed here. Frank Atwood, the Approval Voting Party candidate, is one that I’ve met in person. Frank is a good guy; he spent the $1000 it takes to get onto the ballot in Colorado for the sole purpose of putting the words “Approval Voting” in front of 3 million people. Now, Frank did tell me point-blank that I shouldn’t vote for him, and that he wouldn’t be voting for himself, but I’m still tempted.
There’s Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. I disagree pretty vehemently with about a third of the Libertarian platform, because I believe that tragedies of the commons are real and threatening and can only be solved by collective action, but at least he’s opposed to the drug war, the surveillance state, and wants not just to outsource the functions of government to private contractors but to eliminate those functions entirely, which would be an improvement over the current situation. Having worked for a branch of the federal government in the past, I can say with confidence that there is essentially no operation the civilian bureaucracy performs less efficiently than the beltway bandits do, and that’s really saying something.
The fact that these folks are on the ballot though doesn’t really matter, of course. If I were to vote for either of these guys, I’d have the same effect on the outcome of the election as if I spoiled my ballot. Which is a tempting option, except that nobody would care.
As far as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are concerned, I think that if Trump becomes president it will likely be the greatest cataclysm to befall the United States since the Civil War. So, obviously, I should be voting for Hillary, right?
I can’t bring myself to do it. I cannot bring myself to forgive the voter suppression and deceitful manipulations of the DNC during the Democratic party primary. I cannot bring myself to forgive her silence on the violent suppression of indigenous Americans at Standing Rock. I cannot accept the certainty of continued gridlock as the Republicans easily retain control of Congress for the next eight years as a “check” on Hillary’s power. As much as anything, I cannot stomach to cast a vote for yet another American political dynasty
Our democracy is broken, and we have our voting system to thank for it. Under the one-person-one vote system, we can never have more than two viable parties. We are perpetually forced into a lesser-of-two-evils dilemma, at every level of government. There may be 22 people on my ballot, but I don’t have any genuine choice. Donald Trump has claimed that the system is rigged, and he’s right — the system is rigged, but not against his campaign specifically; the system is rigged against choice. The funny thing is that Trump himself has this particular rigging of the system to credit for his victory in the Republican primary, which used the standard system, known as plurality voting. Early on, voter support was badly fragmented across the field of candidates, which gave Trump’s racist demagoguery a chance, and in every primary where he claimed victory, it was with a minority of the votes cast. But under a plurality system such as the one that we use, support by a vocal, organized minority of the voting populace is enough to win an election. And thus, here we are.
If I cast my vote for a lesser of two evils, I am complicit in supporting that rigged system. So, I’m left with a question — is there a way, any way, that I can use the power of my vote to express my own political will?
It came to me this morning that, in fact, there is. I can sell my vote. So, consider this post as a listing in the classified ads — my vote is up for sale; however, there is only one tender I will accept. I will sell my vote, in exchange for your commitment to future action to support voting system change.
Question 5 on this year’s ballot in Maine proposes to use ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, to select their U.S. senators, U.S representatives, their governor, and state senators and representatives. I commend the people of Maine on taking this first step towards reclaiming a representative democracy. Ranked-choice voting is not perfect (I would greatly prefer range or approval voting) but it’s a step in the right direction. This sort of initiative badly needs to be promoted and supported in other states across the nation and around the world.
So, citizens, this is the coin with which you can buy my vote. Commit to ceasing to compel voters to accept a lesser-of-two evils dilemma. Commit to opposing the gerrymandering of congressional districts, even when it benefits “your” party. In the comments below, state who you want me to vote for along with your commitment to support voting system change, to break the two-party stranglehold. If you happen to be lucky enough to live in Maine, pledge to vote in favor of Question 5. For simplicity’s sake, let’s make this an approval ballot — you can vote for as many candidates as you like, and I pledge to cast my vote for whatever candidate gets the most support.
I’ll be holding my nose regardless of who I end up voting for. But if by “selling” my vote in this fashion I can do even the tiniest part to make it less likely I’m faced with such an awful choice in the future, then I won’t feel as if my franchise has been completely subverted. And may the most highly approved candidate win.
