It’s time to declare our political independence

From the Stamp Act in 1765 to the Tea Act in 1773, and ultimately the shots fired in Lexington in 1775 and the ensuing Revolutionary War, the American people have resisted the vile concept of taxation without representation. Yet with just two independent Senators in the Senate and zero independent or third party Representatives in the House, there is a large and growing segment of the population that is only minimally represented in the major legislative bodies of our federal government. The picture in state legislatures is only slightly less grim — there are a total of 42 independent and third party legislators out of 7,383, or 0.6% compared with 0.4% in Congress.

Of course that is the case, you might think, as we live in a two-party system. Defenders of this system like to point out that two major parties are the natural consequence (known as Duverger’s Law) of our plurality-rule, winner-take-all, first-past-the-post elections. But the reality is that voters have the final say, and when given robust options, they take advantage of them. With the two major parties working overtime to block, silence, shame and even sue third party candidates who have dared to overcome ballot access hurdles set in place by the 99.5% Republican-Democratic authorities, one must question how powerful Duverger’s Law actually is.

American voters, it turns out, detest the limited choices offered every two or four years. In fact, 43% of Americans now identify as politically independent, compared with 29% identifying as Democrat and 27% identifying as Republican. The 2016 presidential candidates were the two most disliked candidates in the modern era. Roughly half of Hillary Clinton’s voters were voting more against Trump than for Clinton, and half of Trump’s voters were voting against Clinton.

Indeed, when polled directly on the question of whether or not to include prominent third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in the nationally televised debates, 76% of likely voters said yes, open the debates. Three out of four U.S. voters can agree on very little these days, but they emphatically stood up for a fundamental principle of democratic elections — that voters should be well-informed of their choices. Remarkably, Johnson and Stein were successfully excluded by an unelected, unaccountable debate commission established by the Democrats and Republicans to tightly control this critically important forum. Even if they were never planning on supporting an independent or third party candidate, voters defaulted to a basic sense of fairness and perhaps mild curiosity or interest. But it was not up to them.

And that’s just it. History shows that when voters are given a deep taste of all of their meaningful options, they often revolt against the duopoly parties who have been running the show. When former wrestler and Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura ran for Governor in Minnesota, he polled at 10% and wasn’t being taken seriously. Ventura, with the help of debate sponsors Minnesota Public Radio and the League of Women Voters, fought his way into the debates and ended up winning with 37% of the vote. Ross Perot was polling at 8% before his appearance in three televised debates and ended up with 19% of the overall vote. And his economic ideas were incorporated into his opponents’ campaigns and ultimately into Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Third parties have a rich and impactful history in the U.S., even with election laws and institutional biases increasingly thwarting their efforts. In recent times, two political parties — the Libertarian Party and the Green Party — have consistently secured enough state ballot lines to theoretically win the Electoral College, and thus the Presidency. On the local level, the Vermont Progressive Party remains the strongest example of a robust third party, though it only has 10 of the 180 seats in the state legislature. Calls for a third major party, as well as calls for abandoning parties altogether, are gaining steam. Polls show 61% of Americans and 71% of millennials say the two parties are doing such a bad job representing them that a major third party is needed.

The system is broken and it’s doing great damage to the nation. Plurality voting, together with a phony bipartisan campaign to prop up the almighty two-party system and smear third party upstarts, is creating a crisis of representation. Voters are limited to two acceptable choices, even though their ballot might hint otherwise. If they deviate from the path, they are derided as vote wasters or worse. They are instructed to vote out of fear, to use their vote as a weapon against the candidate they hate the most. The negativity, spin, and hyper-partisanship of modern campaigns is simply mind-numbing. And the aftermath is typically a winner without majority support. But there is a way out, and there are alternatives gaining traction.

Ranked Choice Voting is the most prominent alternative, and the voters of Maine recently sent a huge message to their dysfunctional government by passing it at the ballot box for the second straight time, successfully fighting off the Governor’s and State Legislature’s efforts to sabotage it. Ranking candidates on the ballot in order of preference gives voters far more say in how they want to be represented. It also ensures that all winners have majority support, it encourages greater participation, and it dramatically reduces negative campaigning because candidates have to vie for second and third place votes. Best of all, it eliminates all the condescending and harmful rhetoric aimed at daring third party candidates and their supporters.

Which brings us to our final point. There is only one path out of this mess.

We are at a crisis point in American democracy. Democratic and Republican partisans will make the case, as they always do, that the stakes are so high that there is only one allowable choice. Everything hangs in the balance. The partisan make-up of Congress is the key to the salvation of our country. Our rights are entirely dependent upon which duopoly party can control the balance of power. This fear-based message is the archetype of political manipulation. With tensions flaring, it has ever more power. But voting out of fear and hatred is a losing proposition. Every. Single. Time. The way we get out of this mess is to view our votes differently, to recognize all of our options, and to step out of the partisan box.

The second we start to even consider all of our options, the blinders come off and we can see our own agency to change what’s broken. We can start to demand more from the candidates who have been taking our votes for granted. We can advocate more effectively for reforms like Ranked Choice Voting and Open Debates that are so clearly beneficial to our system of self-governance. We can break past the psychological barriers that keep 76% of voters feeling powerless over whether or not a fundamental principle of democratic elections might ever get adopted. In short, if we declare our political independence, we recapture the theoretical power of our votes and our voices. If they can’t take our votes for granted, after all, they actually have to start listening to us.

The combined effect of enacting Ranked Choice Voting and Open Debates will open up our political system to the kinds of voices and choices and ideas that can solve problems rather than just blame sides. Voters will feel better represented when independents and third party candidates that they prefer will be provided an actual forum for meaningful discourse and debate. The grip of 99.5% duopoly control of government will give way to a better reflection of where the American electorate truly stands.

92 million voting-eligible Americans (40%) did not vote in the 2016 election.

66 million voted for Hillary Clinton (29%).

63 million voted for Donald Trump (27%).

​The clear winners of the election were apathy and disgust. The clear losers were the American people and our entire democratic experiment. We can, and we must, do better.

This Independence Day, let’s declare our political independence together and vow to only support candidates who are open to sensible electoral reforms. Otherwise, we throw in the towel and accept taxation without representation. We might as well just give England back the reins.