We’re just a month away from a presidential election that Americans seem eager to have in the rearview mirror. We are exhausted with politics, tired of the polarization, and increasingly skeptical that either party can fix what ails us or move the nation forward.
The stakes are high.
I helped found a third party, but will be supporting Kamala Harris this fall. My Forward Party decided not to field a candidate this year, fearful of playing spoiler and unwittingly helping the wrong candidate return to office.
But the majority of Americans feel real anxiety about the future. They worry that the nation is on the wrong track. They’re concerned about the state of the economy and the prospects for their children. They have voted for Democrats and Republicans, and have plenty of reasons to feel used by both.
In short, they want more choices. They want new choices. But there’s only one way to accommodate more choices for voters: modernizing our outdated system and bringing our elections into the 21st century with ranked choice voting. Maine and Alaska have already figured this out. They will use RCV for president this fall.
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Here’s the problem with our “choose-one” elections: The math doesn’t work.
This year, despite telling pollsters for years that they dreaded a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump, voters got just that. Before Biden’s surprise departure in August, more than 50 percent of voters hoped another candidate would enter the race.
Yet, several major names like Senator Joe Manchin and Governor Larry Hogan took a good look and passed; like us, they were fearful that they would end up playing the role of “spoiler.” And they were right: Our two-party system turns any independent into a spoiler.
While most voters will hold their nose and choose either Trump or Harris this November, the desire for options and choices outside the duopoly hasn’t gone anyway—not this cycle, and certainly not for a future where more and more voters identify as independents.
Americans are too smart, and too fed up, to back a lesser of two evils every four years. One of these elections, the pent-up demand for more choice and real voice is going to burst. The spoiler threat will seem like less of a big deal than another four years of the status quo.
With ranked choice voting, serious independents could actually step forward, without concerns that they’d irresponsibly elect a bad candidate with less than 50 percent of the vote.
Instead of picking just one candidate, voters in a ranked choice election have the power to rank the field: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on. Think of it as an insurance policy to protect your vote, and to ensure majority results. The vote-counting works like an instant runoff: If no one has 50 percent of voters first’ choices, the candidates with the lowest totals are eliminated and second choices come into play.
Without RCV, we do not get the independent candidates or multifaceted debate that we deserve. Voters want more choices, but the political market has no incentive to meet that need. Instead, voters’ very real concerns with our two-party system and its inability to deliver for the American people get laundered into the exact political gamesmanship they hate—major parties weaponizing third-party and independent candidates, seeing them as little more than a tool to try and steal votes from the other side.
Earlier this year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s independent bid looked like it might be different. The hunger for a fresh face was so intense that Kennedy registered double-digit support in national polls, numbers no independent has reached since Ross Perot’s 1992 bid.
Third parties often fade as the election gets closer, and as Kennedy’s campaign diminished into single digits, he seemed to fall into the same thinking as his critics: He came to see his own campaign as little more than a “spoiler,” and according to reports, tried to parlay it into jobs with both Trump and Harris. Ultimately, he suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.
None of this makes sense, not for voters, not for political parties, not for independents, and not even for Kennedy’s supporters. Kennedy explained that he was suspending his campaign to avoid playing spoiler in swing states; yet, weeks later, the margins in those states remain so tight that the presidency could be decided by an extra 0.5 percent of voters picking, say, the Green Party’s Jill Stein in Michigan, or the Libertarian Party’s Chase Oliver in Pennsylvania.
The solution shouldn’t be limiting voters’ choices. It’s a voting system that makes room for everyone but still produces the result that pleases a majority of Americans. We should also work toward defeating divisiveness with open primaries that bring independents into the conversation.
It’s too late to solve the spoiler problem for 2024, but we don’t need to go down this same road in 2028. Amidst all of the rancor and negative polarization in our national politics, it’s exciting to see four states and Washington, D.C. voting on adopting some combination of ranked choice voting and open primaries this fall. Voters in those states should say yes to much-needed reform, and more states should follow suit.
If they don’t? Let’s not find out the hard way.
Americans will not hold their noses forever.
With the growing and obvious demand for more choices, there may well be a stronger and more experienced candidate next time who bucks the spoiler problem and runs anyway. There is a market demand. Someone will meet it soon.
We can wish away this likelihood. We can keep doing nothing about spoilers and hoping for different results. Or we can make room for more serious candidates, protect majority winners, and give Americans real choices with ranked choice voting.
Andrew Yang is a businessman, lawyer, philanthropist, and former candidate for president of the United States. In July 2022, Yang, alongside Democrats, Republicans and Independents, launched the new Forward Party to give Americans more choice in our democracy.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.