Message in a Bottle #3 – Political Polygamy
The following was a letter submitted by an anonymous Pirate supporter using the pseudonym “Forward Thoughts”, exploring the subject of “political polygamy”. This article is apart of the project “Message in a Bottle”, allowing supporters of the US Pirate Party to submit editorial articles to the United States Pirate Party website.
The very concept of “political polygamy” is common in the United States. It just is not talked about openly or accepted by most people.
What is political polygamy?
The term, which [author Forward Thoughts] coined, refers to supporting more than one political party.
Not unlike regular polygamy, there is a stigma surrounding it from both people within the party you support and those outside of it. This is especially true in our duopoly system consisting of the Republican and Democratic parties.
Let me give you an example of what I mean by political polygamy. In one presidential election, you vote for a Democrat, and in another presidential election, you vote for a Republican.
Another example would be voting for a Republican for District Attorney while voting for a Democrat for City Alderman. This can happen in the same election or across two consecutive elections.
In case you are unfamiliar, polygamy is when you are partnered with more than one person at any given time. It is for people who want to extend their romance to multiple partners.
The thing about being poly is that there is a stigma surrounding it. You may be branded a “whore” for something as harmless as refusing to date just one person at a time.
Despite our rigid duopoly system, where third party candidates who run for office are seldom given a chance to succeed in their campaigns, there is a way to give them a fair shake in elections against duopoly candidates.
What if I told you political polygamy does not have to be limited to supporting both a Democrat and a Republican in different political office campaigns in the same election cycle? It does not even have to be limited to supporting them for the same office in different election cycles.
We need to replace our current plurality voting system, where your vote is a “one and done” choice, with ranked choice voting. This system allows you to vote for more than one candidate based on preference. You mark your first choice candidate with a one, your second choice with a two, and so forth.
Ranked choice voting increases voter confidence by eliminating the “throwaway vote” concern. It boosts voter turnout, including among third party voters. It also encourages more third party candidates to run for office.
For those unfamiliar, civics is a class taught in some, but not all, high schools across the nation. It does not just explain the inner workings of government. It is also designed to encourage young people to see why voting matters.
Additionally, it teaches students how to form their own political ideology.
The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which had required oversight on soft money campaign spending and transparency in political advertising.
This means corporations and political parties can now spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns at the federal level, as long as they are domestically based in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled that laws restricting campaign financing and political advertising violate the First Amendment.
Additionally, there is now less transparency in political ads.
To change this, the Supreme Court needs to overturn Citizens United v. FEC by hearing a case in which a lawyer successfully argues that campaign spending limits do not violate the First Amendment.
Federal elections for the United States House of Representatives and Senate are important in our federalist system. However, they are not everything. If you want to see the most change in your area, vote in local, county, and state elections.
For example, Vermont, known as the Green Mountain State, has the Progressive Party, a left leaning party that holds offices at various levels of government throughout the state. Even in rural areas, it has strong support.
Electoral fusion, also known as fusion voting, is when a candidate running for office is endorsed by two or more political parties of similar ideology in a single election year.
In the past, all fifty states had legal fusion voting, but today, only Connecticut and New York allow it.
The benefits of fusion voting include allowing political parties to gain ballot access by endorsing a candidate without requiring the candidate to register directly with that party. It enables political parties of similar ideology to work together toward shared goals. It also provides voters with more information on candidates who may not be covered in mainstream media.
For political parties, candidates, and incumbents, fusion voting makes elections more informative because votes from fused party lines can indicate distinct policy demands, political messages the candidate or incumbent is trying to send, discontent among the electorate, and the electoral strength of minor parties.
Proportional representation is an electoral system in which the distribution of seats in a legislature corresponds closely with the percentage of total votes cast for each party.
In this system, the party with the most votes gets the most seats, while parties with fewer votes still receive some representation.
Countries that use proportional representation include Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Finland.
If implemented in the United States, this system would allow third party candidates, even those receiving a small share of votes, to gain representation and influence public policy by offering a distinct perspective.
There is no single way to fix our electoral system, nor can all the solutions mentioned here fully resolve the problem or make political polygamy independent of the two party system.
Change will require a grassroots movement of voters who are fed up with their votes being wasted on candidates bought out by wealthy political donors. These donors seek to maintain power as long as possible, which is a direct insult to democracy.
There also needs to be a neutral way to educate voters about why they should care about politics.
Once these steps are taken, we can make significant progress toward true political polygamy, one that fosters grassroots democracy and robust voter participation.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”