For OpEdNews: Scott Baker - Writer
Your Vote Counts Button
The majority of votes come from the Center of America. See the Bell curve
: 
in my article,
Creating a Geonomic Political Party in New York State
or in http://www.holisticpolitics.org. I disagree with this chart a bit in that I don't believe the center of America is represented by the Status Quo. More on that later though.
What happens if a left-leaning party, like the Green Party, runs in an election? The Greens take votes from the far left. Maybe you agree with them politically, but the majority of Americans don't, and that's why they can't win big elections. Even worse, by running, they allow the Republicans to win by forcing Democrats to tack Left to regain the lost Green vote, losing the Center Electorate.
On the other hand, the Federal Government, especially the anachronistic Senate, is FAR to the Right. It takes only 40 Senators, representing a scant 19% of the electorate - inevitably from the sparsely populated, rural, Red States - to filibuster anything. Throw in a Corporatist or two (these two categories are NOT mutually exclusive!) and you've got a corporate controlled legislature.
We are not being properly represented. In poll after poll, the country is further to the Left on all Social and Economic issues than the Government. People STILL want a public option in healthcare (especially if it's pay-as-you-go Medicare), despite scarecare tactics from both Democratic and Republican leaders, and they don't want abortion restrictions, by and large, either. People DO want to do something about alternative energy and are even willing to be taxed for it, if they can be assured that's where the money will go. The majority wants out of both Wars, yet the Congress just approved the largest military budget in history without a peep, largely to fund the wars (does this include Yemen yet?).
However, these desires don't always translate to the ballot. Why? People are terrified of throwing their vote away and causing the opposition to win. To resolve this, I think EVERY third party should form a coalition demanding an end to winner-take-all voting and instead support a Second Choice (or Third Choice) ballot, where someone's second choice could become the Elected official if they got more votes than anyone else. This would free voters from the fear of wasting their vote, plus it would avoid increasingly expensive runoff campaigns and, most importantly of all, it would allow people to make a real choice, based on what they want and not what the Corporate lobby pays to shove in front of them in a vote-for-me-or-else fashion. The Democrat/Republican duopoly will never support this since it would undercut their power at the next election (at least until the politicians got smart and switched to suddenly empowered third parties). As Second Choice Voting points out,
"It helps voters by allowing them to choose who they really want without losing influence over who actually has a chance of winning. Often voters have to decide between voting strategically so their vote makes a difference, or voting sincerely for who they really prefer. With this method, voters supply additional information so strategic voting should not be necessary." (Emphasis added).
It's not enough to have good ideals like the Green Party, or, in my opinion, like my proposed Geonomic Party. You have to WIN!
Support the Second Choice Ballot. Then we can have a real discussion about which party provides the best representatives to run the country.
*** UPDATE *** Second Choice Voting is also known as Instant Runoff Voting and its advantages over Plurality voting - which allows a candidate to win even without garnering the majority of votes, as Bill Clinton did in 1992 - are described here in an Editorial by John Anderson.
Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Support the Second Choice Ballot!
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Scott Baker is a Senior Editor and Writer at Op Ed News, a Writer for DailyKos, and is the author of Neitherworld - a two-volume novel blending Native American myth, archaeological detail, government conspiracy, with a sci-fi flair. He has a (
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