“Federal Election Commission records show Stein paid $100,000 in July to a consulting outfit that has worked with Republican campaigns, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid. The firm, Accelevate, is operated by Trent Pool. The Intercept reported that he appeared to be part of the mob that breached the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., 2021. The Journal hasn’t independently verified the reporting.”
This is the hilarious tragedy of the Democratic party:
If the race is close, then the electoral college, courts and other methods can be used to bump things to the GOP (2000).
If the race isn’t that close, then people will feel comfortable voting third party to “make a statement”, which can cost enough votes in key states to cost the election (2016).
I mean, in 2016 Dems still handily won the popular vote, so it was still the electoral college as the ultimate problem, and third parties were only contributing factors.
In addition to just being a good idea, getting rid of the electoral college would be good because we’d never have to hear about meaningless third-party candidates acting as spoilers. They’d either be real contenders or just narcissists like Jill Stein.
Getting rid of the electoral college would not solve spoiler candidates necessarily. For that you would need to replace it with ranked voting or multiple rounds. Would still be a good idea, as the college just means presidents caring a lot more about swing states.
Without the electoral college though, the only time a third party candidate could act as a spoiler would be if they had a significant share of the vote. They deserve to be spoilers in those cases I think. My problem is with folks pulling in 1% - 3% of the vote in a single state ultimately deciding a national election.
But yeah, RCV would be the best way to ensure better representation (though honestly it can still easily have what could be viewed as “spoilers”)
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