After a screening of "The Corporation," someone approached me asking to sign a petition to include Green Party candidates in the Pennsylvania ballot this November. The Green Party candidates would include three state offices and their presidential candidate. I signed the petition.
A great friend of mine expressed his disappointment at my choice and even though we have not had a chance to discuss it, I wanted to solidify my thoughts. So you, dear reader, get to endure the initial rough draft.
The groundwork:
1. I will vote for John Kerry this November.
2. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000.
3. I despise what the George W. Bush administration has wrought.
4. I believe that an increased plurality of parties and options on our ballots is, for the most part, a good thing in the long-run
5. Ralph Nader is not the presidential candidate for the Green Party this election.
View 1:
Allowing alternative parties to have a presence in the ballot is tantamount to allowing the possibility of votes moving away from John Kerry and Democrat candidates. This shift in votes presents the clear and present danger of tipping an important state toward George W. Bush and toward Republican candidates for other offices.
There has been no wider chasm, in my lifetime, between voting for the Democratic and Republican parties. The infestation of certain policies and views into government agencies and courts has had and will have an impact on government policy for years to come.
Because of this, it is wiser to put aside more theoretical views endorsing an increased plurality of parties in the long-term and choose the more pragmatic, immediate need of supporting the party that has the best chance of dislodging the present, despicable administration. A stronger formulation: it is irresponsible to make it easier for the present administration to rule another four years and continue placing their policies into our government agencies and courts.
See, for instance, The Nader Factor: a site founded by "a group of Democratic strategists" dedicated to winning over "Nader Democrats," according to the Washington Post.
View 2:
A central tenet of democratic principles includes providing access to as many government options as supported by a society. In order for an option to be viable in a democratic process, it is acceptable to require a minimal threshold of support to be met for such an option to be available to the entire populace (thus the petition signing drives).
If non-traditional parties ask for support to be considered an option during an election, authentic adherence to democratic (little "d") principles should lead one to, at the very least, consider whether that party's platform should be available for evaluation and selection during an election. Choosing to support a party's access to a ballot should not be confused, obviously, with choosing that party during an election.
Even if the presence of those parties creates the possibility of eroding support for the party one supports, principled adherence to democratic principles should lead one to risk that possibility. After all, one should support giving voice to sectors of the populace and the minimal threshold has been met.
The presence of these options should make the political discourse richer -- traditional parties are now pressured to evaluate the positions of those additional parties and choose to incorporate them or offer their own explanations of why and how they differ from those views. The electorate receives an improved spectrum of discourse. Well, one would hope!
My view:
Of course, there are more than those two views and you are welcome to add subtleties and variations I chose to omit. My view is very close to View 2.
I wrestle with View 1 all the time and I do have retrospective regrets for having chosen Nader in 2000. However, this particular case is different. The distinction is between allowing options on the ballot and choosing the option in the ballot that weakens the party that has the best chance to remove George W. Bush.
Is endorsing more theoretical, foundational democratic principles a naive, dangerous position given the contrast between Democrats and Republicans in 2004? I do not think it is naive, but it is dangerous. But this danger is inherent to any system where you allow the populace to decide what people and principles will guide a society.
If the presence of these parties in the ballot results in a GWB victory, I will feel awful. But I will not target the alternative parties as the source of the catastrophe. I will look first at the failure of the Democratic party to appeal to this growing dissatisfaction in the populace and I will look at the electorate's poor judgment. However, I will not regret allowing the options to exercise this judgment to be present in the ballots.
Political Pragmatism:
Some may say that an adherence to abstract and vague "foundational democratic principles" have to be put on hold when the effects of such adherence will have a pivotal impact on whether we will have a better, more humane and sensitive party in power. The pragmatic pull is a strong one and it has swayed me to vote for Kerry.
This pragmatic pull, however, does not sway me when it comes to ballot accessibility by legitimate parties that are trying to meet the threshold lawfully.
Tough cases?:
Case 1: Well, given your principles, would you sign a petition asking for ballot access to the Nazi Party of the U.S.A.?
No. The difference lies in the fact that such parties have platforms that run counter to fundamental democratic and human right principles. There is no contradiction in not choosing to support their presence in a ballot. If they manage to meet the required threshold for presence in ballots, then I worry about the kinds of people in my society.
Perhaps this tough case is a bit of a straw man -- it will get more difficult with less extreme cases that are despicable yet where it is not immediately evident that they violate fundamental democratic and human right principles. Can anyone think of less extreme cases?
Case 2: Some reports have suggested that activists from some alternative political parties have been presenting their petitions as voter registration drives, covering up the language in the petition that makes it clear that it is a petition to give the party presence in state ballots.
| Dems challenging Nader's bid in Pa. |
Despicable behavior that must trigger investigations to determine whether this is party sanctioned behavior or horrible tactics by foot soldiers. If true, either way, those parties should be sanctioned. Though I must admit that I am undecided whether the sanctions should include something as severe as removal of the party from the ballots. Without a doubt, the fraudulent signature should not count toward that end.
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If you have other tough cases, please feel free to set them out. There may be tougher ones I have not thought of.
So, given that I have often told people that I am an "apolitical" being and that a central tenet of Elliptic Blog is to pursue "economy of oral or written expression," I seem to have run counter to those statements. I guess I have changed.
Thanks for enduring this.
| Public Agenda |
| League of Women Voter's Democracy.net |
| CNN's "The Issues" - for what that's worth |
