Information Cascades and the Effect on Third Party Candidates
by Kaycee
As the 2012 presidential race comes to a close, I have realized my disappointment with the lack of attention third parties have received. Despite the fact that third parties have views that appear to be more aligned with the views of the majority (middle class) versus the extreme views held by both Democrat and Republican parties they receive almost no votes in comparison. When I think of the lack of support for third parties I think of how information cascades affect votes. Using information cascades in order to help decide how you will vote is referred to as strategic voting. Voting for a third party is viewed by many as throwing away a vote. Although voting is private, the thoughts and ideas of others do have influence on our decisions. If the masses are wrong about the Democrat and Republican parties being the most deserving of the majority of votes, many people will continue to ignore their own information. Even worse, the information on third party candidates will remain hidden from people who do not seek out this information for themselves.
Media coverage for third parties will not come until the people demonstrate interest and demand this coverage. This means that there needs to be a change in the information cascade. In order to do this, the people who both know about third parties and support them should not follow the crowd just because they think their second favorite candidate is better than trying to get their ideal candidate. Information cascades push the majority in a certain direction but they are also very fragile and can be changed and we need pioneers to take the initiative to do this.
The biggest solution to changing the current way we vote is to stop believing that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote. The view that many people have is summed up by this quote from Ilya Somin “If we choose to vote, however, I think we should vote for the least bad of the candidates that have a realistic chance of winning. The chance that your vote will be decisive is extremely low, but still just barely high enough [to] justify taking the responsibility.” This view tells us to go with the information we see and have been seeing for years. But what happens when that information is no longer correct? If millions of people are convinced because a thrid party has never been picked they are better off choosing either Democrat or Republican, little do they know that if they all voted third party, they could have pushed the election in a completely different direction. Now that is truly a waste of votes.
http://therumpus.net/2012/11/a-case-for-the-wasted-vote/
http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/20/crock-the-vote/