Rock Island Argus: Give Third Parties a Fair Shot

Letter to the editor, by Matt Hindman, in the Rock Island Argus on August 8, 2006.

Rock Island Argus: Give Third Parties a Fair Shot
By Matt Hindman
The Rock Island Argus
August 8, 2006

I was very pleased to read the editorial, "Give third parties fair shot," which described the unfair obstacles that minor political parties face in order to slate candidates on the November ballot.  As a member of the Illinois Green Party, I know first-hand the difficulty of gathering signatures - of which the Illinois Green Party had to collect over 25,000 to appear in statewide races - with limited resources simply to give voters a third option at the ballot box.

As the article correctly pointed out, the Democratic Party has challenged the validity of the Green Party's signatures.  The Democrats' motivation is quite clear: To keep the Greens from potentially 'spoiling' the election (as occurred in the 2000 Presidential election).   In this regard, the Green Party fully anticipated that the Democrats would legally challenge our signature drive.  Any why wouldn't they?  Under the current method of plurality voting, in which a vote for a Green is seen by many as a vote stolen from the Democrats, voters must often choose between voting their hearts and voting strategically.

Simply put, the Democrats, who control the state legislature and thus have control over the state's election laws, have chosen the wrong solution.  Rather than (unsuccessfully) attempt to remove the Greens from the ballot by requiring them to collect an insanely large number of signatures, the Democrats ought to consider implementing fairer election laws. 

For example, the implementation of instant-runoff voting (IRV) would allow voters to vote for their top choice - be it Democrat, Republican, or otherwise - without the threat of 'spoiling' the election.  Under the instant-runoff system, voters essentially rank candidates in their order of desirability in three-way races.  Upon counting the first-place votes, then, if no candidate has received the majority, the last-place contender is eliminated and subsequent rounds of votes are tallied until one candidate has received the clear majority.  This method of voting would essentially give voters the option to vote for minor party contenders while still placing one of the major parties ahead of the other.

I encourage readers of the Dispatch/Argus – as well as the Democratic lawmakers who fear the Green presence on the ballot – to learn more about the merits of instant-runoff elections and other fair-vote initiatives.

Matt Hindman,
Rock Island