Blaming one election factor for altering the results of the electoral college and the selection of our president is a gross over-simplification!
Many presidential election years include references to third-party candidates and their potential impact on the election. The popular vote for third-party candidates is often used by the second-place candidate as the reason for their loss of the election. How valid are such claims?
First of all, let's look at one example of the election laws and party rules for selecting electors to the Electoral College (EC).
As stated in our Constitution, the presidential election winner is determined only by the EC. In addition, the slate of state Electors are determined according to their state laws. The laws of the state of Texas include the following election law:
- Texas State Law, "Sec. 192.003. METHOD OF BECOMING ELECTOR CANDIDATE. To become a presidential elector candidate, a person must be nominated as a political party's elector candidate in accordance with party rules or named as an elector candidate by an independent or write-in candidate for president." And the "party rules" for selecting electors are applied during the party's state convention:
- Texas Democratic Party Convention rules: "Purpose.
- "The purpose of the State Convention shall be to elect a State Chair, First Vice Chair, Vice Chair for Finance, Secretary and Treasurer;....
- "Additionally, in presidential years the Convention shall... select the official slate of Presidential Electors."
- Texas State Law, "Sec. 192.005. VOTE REQUIRED FOR ELECTION. The set of elector candidates that is elected is the one that corresponds to the candidates for president and vice-president receiving the most votes."
When a candidate wins the most votes in a state, they get the nominated Electors as determined by the party of the winning candidate. Rules in each state vary and our history shows that some third-party candidates have secured electoral votes, which raises certain questions:
- When was the last election where a third-party candidate secured any electoral votes? 1968 - George Wallace.
- Since 1835, how many times has a third-party candidate won any electoral votes? Seven times - 1836, 1860, 1892, 1912, 1924, 1948, 1968. That's only 15% of 47 elections.
- If the third-party candidate(s) had not won their electoral votes, would their lost EC votes have changed the winner of the election? No! See multi-party election summaries below:
Seven Relevant Historical Election Results
Click here for sharper view of image above.
Bottom line is:
NO THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATE(S) HAS EVER WON ENOUGH ELECTORAL VOTES TO ALTER ANY OF OUR LAST 47 ELECTIONS. And the one who got lots of popular votes but no electoral electors, Ross Perot in 1992, did not change the result of that election either.
And if one or more third-party candidates can't even get enough state electoral votes to impact the EC results, how much effect can they alone have on votes for the top two candidates to change the electoral results for those two leaders? Other factors may combine with third-party candidates to impact what happens to a states electors, but to blame just one of those many factors is just over-simplification of a complex election process.
Our history is filled with a great number of factors that have affected our elections. Just read the short summaries of all of our elections, since the first one in 1789, to understand some of the many factors that alter who serves as our president. Below is a list of such factors that have affected some of our more recent elections:
- voter suppression via state legislation,
- rigging elections to delay the end of releasing hostages in Iran or suspending peace talks for the Vietnam war, or letting SCOTUS get involved,
- running dull and uninspiring candidates that oligarch-owned media ignore as unprofitable,
- social media manipulation,
- free news coverage of one candidate to maximize profit while ignoring all others,
- FBI stooge commenting on Hillary's email,
- billions in oligarch funds buying TV ads,
- mishandling national crises/disasters,
- more than two candidates,
- TV networks willfully lying,
- very poor messaging by one party: too much about their evil opponent and too little about fixing what ails citizens.
We all know and many of us have issues with the EC process from our nation's Constitution. It was added to grant Southern states more control over the selection of the president to help them protect slavery. It did that by basing the number of state electors on the number of state representatives, or the state's population. A population that included slaves, women, and white men who didn't own property - none of whom could vote at the time.
One more comment: Telling voters they are throwing away their vote unless they vote for one of the two main parties only discourages voting. We need more voters, not fewer.
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