The Politico story about Team Biden's fear of a third-party challenger “siphoning votes” they seem to believe belong to them has generated a response from Richard Winger, one of the country's foremost authorities on ballot access and third-party politics.
Winger writes that the Politico story offers “nothing new” while also entirely missing a larger, more interesting story: the decades-old practice of the major parties going out of their way to thwart and undermine third-party presidential candidacies:
Supposedly neutral commentators seem to think there is nothing wrong with restricting competition. The Politico story could have mentioned that the Democratic Party has taken action to keep its competitors off the ballot in the presidential elections of 1936, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1976, 1980, 2004, 2020, and already 2024.
So much for the Democratic talking point about counting every vote. We're absolutely supposed to count every vote…but only if those votes are for a major party candidate. (RELATED: Democrat Congressman Calls For Colleagues To Primary Biden)
Winger also notes another Democratic problem with ranked choice voting voters:
The Politico story could also have mentioned that bills to use ranked choice voting in presidential and other general elections have been introduced in various states with Democratic legislative majorities for 24 years, but no legislature had passed such bills until this year when such a bill passed in Oregon, which has a Democratic majority in both houses of its legislature. If Democrats have been worried about “spoiling” for so many decades, why haven't they passed ranked choice voting in past decades, in states where they had the power to do so?
For the simple reason that it was never a priority. Better to simply strangle competition than be forced to acknowledge it even exists. (RELATED: Lacking Offensive Strategy, Republicans Are Doomed To Lose Again)
When competition does rear its head – or even threaten to do so – major party apparats can drop their differences in order to unite against potential competitors:
Top Democratic strategists, including current advisers to President Biden and former U.S. senators, met last week with former Republicans who oppose Donald Trump at the offices of a downtown D.C. think tank.
Their mission: to figure out how to best subvert a potential third-party presidential bid by the group No Labels, an effort they all agreed risked undermining Biden's reelection campaign and reelecting former president Donald Trump to the White House.
But such united fronts are not the norm. Instead, it's usually one major party in a panic about its general election chances.
And don't for a second think Republicans, too, aren't guilty of fiddling with third parties. They have been doing so for years. Back in the 2020 presidential race:
In Wisconsin, a G.O.P. elections commissioner and lawyers with ties to Republicans tried to aid attempts by Howie Hawkins, the current Green Party presidential candidate, to get on the ballot there, which were ultimately unsuccessful. In Montana, state regulators found that the Republican Party violated campaign finance laws as part of an effort to boost the Greens in five down-ballot races, including for senator and governor.
The major party duopoly, then, is not interested in allowing competition unless it helps one party in particular. Their game is, as it always has been, about power. As for democracy? Well, it looks good on campaign brochures. But that's about it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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