The 2016 Election, Third party candidates, and the promotion of the “Irrelevant Alternative”
We have recently seen the end of one of the most turbulent election cycles in American history. One remarkable trend about this election was the prominence of two Third-Party Candidates, Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party and Jill Stein of the Green Party. The two gained notable press during the early election news cycle, both positive and negative. Ignoring the critiques of their ability to fill the role of president, one of the most common criticisms of a third-party vote was that no candidate really had the ability to win and that someone voting for a preferred third-party candidate is only hurting the more “mainstream” candidate who aligns most with their political views.
One topic which we have discussed in class is within voting systems, the possibility for less popular candidates to succeed through the promotion of “Irrelevant Alternatives”. The term is most applicable to ranked voting systems, which the US does not use, but the concept still holds relevance when examining the recent election. In any voting system, by promoting one of the least viable competitors, it is entirely possible to take votes away from a competitor who is more likely to win. This idea of being irrelevant to the election, and stealing votes from more popular candidates permeated the election news cycle. Many people argued that candidates like Jill Stein have stolen important votes from Hillary Clinton, votes that might have helped her win the election.
Judging by reports on exit polls, it’s unclear whether or not this is the case. It’s worth noting that even in the absence of a there are voter alternatives beyond voting for the candidate. It’s entirely possible that without Jill Stein’s Candidacy during the elections her supports would not have been guaranteed to all vote for Clinton. The difficulty with the effect of hypothetical circumstances is that it is very hard to know what people might have done given a completely different set of circumstances than what we actually saw.
Source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/15/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-how-third-party-candidates-did-in-2016/?utm_term=.ad408d0eb3be