by Rolf Lindgren
All Third Party candidates have heard it, the person who says; "I'd like to vote for you, but you have no chance to win." This is known as Wasted Vote Syndrome. There is some good news, however, that can be discerned from polling data obtained by the 2004 Michael Badnarik Presidential Campaign. Wasted Vote Syndrome is a curable disease.
How bad is the effect of Wasted Vote Syndrome?
[note - all polls cited in this article were conducted by Rasmussen Public Opinion Research]
A November 2002 Wisconsin poll found that Libertarian Ed Thompson lost 52% of his votes to Wasted Vote Syndrome. In the poll, 23% said they liked Thompson the best, but only 11% voted for him. You can't win a three-way race when 52% of your votes are siphoned off. Wasted Vote Syndrome, along with biased media polls, cost Thompson the election.
A May 2004 national poll indicated that Libertarian candidate for president Aaron Russo would receive about 3% of the votes in a four-way race with Independent Ralph Nader. The same poll indicated Ralph Nader would have gotten about 8%. Nader ended up with 0.3%. The drop off for Nader, besides ballot access problems and poor news coverage, can be attributed to Wasted Vote Syndrome.
A July 2004 national poll indicated that Badnarik lost 57% of his votes to Wasted Vote Syndrome. 7% liked Badnarik the best, but only 3% were willing to vote for him at that point. The amount of media coverage a candidate polling at 7% gets, compared to a candidate polling at 3%, is immense.
A July 2004 California poll indicated that Libertarian Senate candidate, Judge Jim Gray lost 56% of his votes to Wasted Vote Syndrome. 18% of likely voters liked Judge Gray the best, but only 8% were willing to vote for him at that point. Wasted Vote Syndrome is not as pronounced in July as it is in November. Gray ended up with only 2% of the vote, an eventual drop-off of 89%.
An October 2004 national poll indicated that 3% of likely voters liked Badnarik the best. Badnarik finished at 0.3%. Badnarik lost 90% of his votes to Wasted Vote Syndrome.
OK, that proves it, Wasted Vote Syndrome is pretty bad. I'd say its reduces Third Party vote by 90%.
Now here's the good news. Polling data indicates that when voters are exposed to the concept that a vote for someone they like is an investment for the future, they are less likely to vote for the "lesser of two evils".
Here's a poll question of likely voters in New Mexico, during October 2004:
Suppose there was a presidential candidate who you agreed with, but had no chance to win. Would you consider a vote for that candidate to be an investment for the future?
65% Yes
23% No
12% Not sure
That's promising! We can cure 2/3 of the people suffering from Wasted Vote Syndrome according to this poll question, simply by suggesting that their vote is an investment for the future.
Here's another question from the same poll, with the results:
Which best describes your definition of a wasted vote for President?
You vote for someone you don't like (11%)
You vote for someone who has no chance to win (16%)
You vote for someone who wins, but the candidate wins by so much that your vote didn't matter, they would have won anyway (4%)
No vote is wasted if it is counted (66%)
Not sure (3%)
Only 16% thought voting for someone with no chance to win was a wasted vote, when exposed to alternatives.
Now these two previous poll questions were from surveys conducted in New Mexico. I can think of no reason why voters in other states would think differently.
Here is one final poll question, asked in 2004, regarding the nation's largest Third Party:
Do you think the Libertarian candidate for President has a chance to win in the Presidential election scheduled for the year 2016?
19% Yes
53% No
28% Not sure
There you have it, a Libertarian vote is an investment for the future. Most voters from the 2004 election will still be alive in 2016.
Rolf Lindgren was the Polling Director for the 2004 Michael Badnarik Presidential Campaign.
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