A Vote for Conscience

Political science uses the term “election cycle” to denote the sequence of events from when a candidacy is declared to the final election. The sequence repeats itself over the course of every election, making the cycle fairly predictable. More than the events themselves, however, people’s behavior during the cycle follows very predictable patterns. It’s downright Pavlovian how mainstream voters in the cycle’s final month attack independent candidates for “splitting the vote,” yet a major flaw undermines that outlook.

If just for clarity’s sake, some terms should be defined beforehand. “Mainstream voter” denotes a voter who belongs to one of the two legacy parties of Republican and Democrat, and as such, conceives of nothing outside the duopoly. Vanilla or chocolate, but never pistachio. “Independent candidate” means either a candidate affiliated to no party, or a candidate affiliated to one other than the legacy parties, such as the Green Party, LaRouchers, Constitutionists and Libertarians. Pistachio, strawberry, coffee, and piña colada! Obviously the existence of independent parties implies the existence of their partisans, so “independent voters” are those who belong to such parties and those who – though they belong to the legacy parties – will vote for independent candidates under the right circumstances.

The Election Cycle

At its beginning, the election cycle starts with someone declaring candidacy for a certain office. That declaration could be a timid post on social media which few contacts even see, a lone lawn sign or bumper sticker, or a bold announcement delivered to a crowd and televised statewide. Along the timeline, this could be even years ahead of the corresponding election.

If the person who declares candidacy belongs to the legacy parties, then this is when the candidate garners attention in the media and on the interwebs. The candidate works the podcast circuit and begins to develop a press reel. Talking heads in corporate media and online will comment on the candidate’s perceived virtues and chances. At this point in the game, publicity pro or con helps to generate “buzz” around a candidacy, priming the electorate’s attention towards a given race.

Of course, all this applies only if someone is a legacy candidate. If someone is an independent, then mainstream voters and corporate media will utterly ignore him. Even chatter on the blogosphere is minimal since it would take actual effort (perish the thought!) for bloggers to inform themselves of independent candidates’ platforms.

After heady declarations of candidacy, the candidates must timely file the necessary paperwork with electoral authorities. Such paperwork includes some kind of circulated petition within the polity which gathers a set threshold of voter signatures (such as 5% of a polity’s registered voters, or 5% of those registered in the candidate’s balloted party). Electoral authorities will also demand filings about campaign finance, such as bank accounts established for the campaign and donor disclosures. Presuming that such paperwork complies with electoral law and regulations, the candidacies will be official and appear on the ballot. Along the election cycle’s timeline, this stage concludes in May.

This is another stage gamed against independent candidates. They may be subject to significantly higher thresholds for petitioning. New York State is the union’s worst offender of this sort. Statewide candidates (e.g., governor, U.S. Senator, U.S. President, attorney general and comptroller) must gather 45,000 signatures from registered New York voters within 42 days, and these must be gathered from voters who reside in at least twelve congressional districts (so no hanging out for weeks with a clipboard in front of Manhattan’s Grand Central Station). NY Election Law § 6-142. Other states will not be so absurdly draconian, but the hurdles are always higher for independents than their legacy counterparts.

After the primary election at the end of June determines the legacy nominees, campaigning picks up steam towards July. Candidates court their constituencies and make public and private appearances. This is when candidates shake hands and kiss babies (never the other way around, please!). Candidates woo donors at kaffeeklatschen. Between July and August, if legacy candidates have an indie rival, scant acknowledgement often comes in the form of ridicule with statements like, “This guy should’ve just stayed in his parents’ basement instead of wasting everyone’s time with this vanity campaign!”

September to October is the season for debates, newspaper editorials and telephonic polling. The institutions which host debates usually exclude balloted independents, so that the electorate is deceived into thinking there are only two choices. A memorable instance of such rigging was WHMT “Public” Media which in 2020 televised a debate between legacy rivals for the NY-19th Congressional, conspicuously excluding Dr. Victoria Alexander (Libertarian) and Steven Greenfield (Green Party), who were both legally balloted candidates. Other times, an institution will invite independents to a debate, but legacy candidates boycott it. Case in point was Arkansas PBS which in October 2020 invited Rev. Ricky Dale Harrington, Jr. (Libertarian) to debate Republican incumbent U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, but Cotton no-showed. (time stamp 05:38)

Newspaper editorials overall treat independents better than legacy press, when legacy editors deign to print them. People who read press tend to be freer thinkers than those who only consume programming on television and radio, so they are more open to consideration of unconventional candidacies. It is therefore encouraging when such editorials lament the exclusion of independents from supposedly public forums.

The third late election cycle feature of telephonic polling is the worst scam in political practice. A candidate will proudly publish a poll which shows him “in the lead,” and the electorate regards the poll as gospel. What the electorate does not realize is that the candidate commissions the poll no different than ordering a mocha latté from a nose-ringed barista. Pollsters know the result which the candidate seeks, and for a cool $40,000, they can fashion the surveys to ensure that result. One disingenuous polling methodology which is completely legal is to intercalate variant questions after every fifth person polled, or some predetermined number of persons. Thus, Candidate Red’s commissioned poll initially asks, “If the election were held today, would you vote for Candidate Red or Candidate Blue?” But on the fifth person surveyed, that question becomes, “If the election were held today, would you vote for Candidate Red or Candidate Gold?” By targeting red districts in this way, Candidate Red can ensure polls which show him with a strong lead over his legacy rival, and proportionately more over any independent rival.

Home Stretch

Candidates grow apprehensive about close races in the last weeks before the General Election. This is when legacy candidates go on the attack against their indie rivals. A memorable instance of such desperation was the accusation in late October 2018 that the Democrats had “planted” New York gubernatorial candidate Larry Sharpe (Libertarian) to defeat the struggling Republican candidate. The bitter truth was the Republican with zero cross-over appeal was statistically guaranteed to lose this state 3-to-1 Democrat (which he did by twenty-three percentage points in a five-way race).

Perhaps emboldened by the legacy candidates’ offensive against indie contenders, mainstream voters also attack their independent counterparts. Right on cue for the lead-up to the General Election, mainstream voters charge independents for “splitting the vote.” Yet closer examination of this charge reveals its false premise.

The charge of splitting the vote implies that the independents owe their votes to the legacy candidates. The corollary is that the legacy candidates deserve the independents’ votes. More than anything, this is a foundational difference between legacy candidates and independents since the latter never presume that anyone owes them anything.

Earlier this article lamented that the media ignores independent candidates, but the argument was never that independents deserve attention. The lament concerns the fact that such candidates are excluded based on that independence, regardless of their records and platforms. The society which outright ignores the policy proposals of those unaffiliated to the duopoly, is the society with a worrisome blind spot to innovation.

Reclaiming Our Voice

The numerous practices catalogued in this article which discriminate against independents have the overarching effect of silencing them and funnelling their votes towards the duopoly. With a third of all registered voters nationwide affiliated as independents, such disenfranchisement is as unwise as it is unfortunate. Thankfully, it can be easily remedied.

Voting independent is the best way to overcome systematic disenfranchisement. If a given race presents a candidacy outside the duopoly, cast that vote. If the duopoly’s work has been so thorough as to eliminate any indie rivals in a race, then write in someone else. Though a write-in candidate may profess objectives seemingly at odds with the Libertarianism this blog typically espouses, you’d be mistaken to conclude incompatibility.

Libertarianism’s core precept is freedom of conscience. Conscience becomes meaningless if independents – whether as candidates or voters – have no practical way to express it. Therefore, the duopoly’s disenfranchisement of independents is the single biggest issue for anyone concerned with liberty.

This stance will mean that Libertarians vote or write-in candidates with objectives dissimilar to our values. On such occasions, we should remember that Libertarianism is not about having the fashionable or correct convictions. It’s about allowing every person to express his own conscience as it is and preserving the means of persuading him otherwise.

This principle should be interpreted to the widest extent, with only the following limitation. If an independent candidate were to propose the disenfranchisement of fellow citizens – via discrimination of ideology or other characteristics – then this is a candidate whom no Libertarian should support.

A Call to Action!

This article has described the election cycle in general terms, but now attention should be turned to a specific race, that for New York Governor in 2026. For those readers who vote in New York, the call to action is this: write in LARRY SHARPE.

Unlike the aforementioned situation of voting independent though the candidate’s proposals may differ from Libertarian values, Larry Sharpe is our Movement’s best messenger. This is why the duopoly in 2020 removed the ballot-access which Mr. Sharpe had fairly won in 2018, which was supposed to last four years, corresponding naturally to the gubernatorial office’s duration.

If you vote in another state, you can find your state’s corresponding Libertarian Party affiliate and see whether any of their candidates appear on your ballot, or what recommendations the affiliate makes concerning ballot initiatives.

Against all those who would silence us, let’s raise our voice loud in 2026 and vote independent!