Let's say a registered Democrat in 2016 wants to vote for Jill Stein for President but also wants to hedge her bet and throw a little support to another candidate. So she ranks her choices: Stein first, Clinton second. When all the voters' first-choice votes are tallied up, the vote-counters find that Stein has not won a majority of those first-choice votes. Clinton, in this scenario, has received more first-choice votes than Stein but still not enough for a majority among all the candidates. So the vote-counters push aside all the first-choice votes for Stein and any other candidate who finished "out of the money." The counters then total up the second-choice votes for Clinton and add those to her overall total. So, even though Clinton's support was a bit weak among many voters, still she benefits from the half-hearted (second-choice) votes that she won.
The same dynamic might be at work with, say, a registered Republican who felt a bit nauseous about voting for Donald Trump. Using RCV, he could vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson (for example) as his first, preferred choice, and for Trump as his second, somewhat grudging choice. (I can't help adding that my own preference, even under RCV, would be to vote for my one chosen candidate and leave it at that.) In this scenario, Trump would benefit from his second-choice votes just as Clinton did from hers.
But what about an eligible voter whose conscience directs her not to vote at all? That is, what if she has the legal right to vote but, come Election Day, she sees no candidate who appeals to her? What good does RCV do her? Well, none, really. She is one of millions of Americans who do not bother to vote--about 40 percent of the eligible electorate in presidential elections. I believe a lot more of those people would vote--will vote--when third parties get busy and run more candidates, campaign more aggressively, and above all demonstrate independence from the two major parties.
Maybe RCV would be unpredictable in other ways. Peter Camejo (Nader's vice presidential running mate in 2004) explained how RCV might not end up "protecting" the major parties from the minor parties. Camejo reasoned that once voters got accustomed to casting their votes for the candidates they really want instead of against the candidates they despise, then voting third-party might start to catch on in a big way. Voters might get a charge out of voting for independent or third-party candidates and might start turning out in bigger numbers.
Of course, we have to wonder what the effect of all this might be on state legislatures stuffed with Republicans and Democrats. Why would major-party lawmakers want to pass RCV and thereby help their minor-party rivals? Well, naturally, they wouldn't. That's why I'm very skeptical about Reich's recommendation that we keep our distance from small parties and just wait"and wait"and wait for that fine day when Democrats and Republicans suddenly abandon their own self-interest and begin to pass election laws that are more fair and more democratic. Yes, they've already passed RCV in one small state (Maine), but are they likely to pass it in big states anytime soon? Malcolm X once suggested that if you wait for the people in power to voluntarily give up some of their power, then "you'll be waiting a long time." If the major parties do start passing RCV in lots of states, well, that's great. But I think minor parties would do better to concentrate on trying to win elections on their own, without any "help" from their major-party competitors, and then introduce RCV legislation themselves.
Reich recommends another way that restless progressives and socialists can participate in Democratic Party affairs without upsetting the applecart too much. They can support an insurgent candidate like Bernie Sanders! Of course, Reich admits, "the Democratic party establishment rigged the game against him." But then he quickly adds: "I don't want to open up this particular can of worms." This is a strange way to make his case. First he asks his readers to trust the Democratic Party as a good place in which to run a progressive candidate. But then he admits how completely untrustworthy the party's leaders have proven themselves to be. Then he clears his throat and says he doesn't really want to talk about it. Does Reich really expect his readers to be bowled over by this kind of an argument?
A lot of voters--especially younger ones--just aren't going to buy this kind of talk anymore. They see many Americans more or less guaranteeing their votes to Wall Street Democrats like Clinton and demanding nothing in return. They demand nothing, and of course they get nothing. Democrats in Congress can support pretty much the same policies that the Republicans support--big bank bailouts, constant wars in the Middle East, welfare "reform," attacks on civil liberties, universal healthcare that isn't universal and mostly benefits insurance companies--and so on, ad nauseam. They can do all that and many people just keep coming back and voting for Democrats and getting slapped in the face for it. You see the problem?
The solution is obvious. We need a new major party to compete with the two old major parties. With all due respect to Secretary Reich, the country needs exactly the opposite of the foul, corrupt, rotten two-party system that he wants to save. The country needs a third party--a new, independent political party of working people who have just plain had it.
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