7/12/2004 07:57:49 AM|||Nathan Moore|||

Tyler Cowen weighs in on Jacob Levy's proposal to vote libertarian. I take issue with his first point in his analysis.

1. Your vote will not count, no matter what. If the election is close, the courts will decide it. "They" won't let me (or Jacob) decide an election.

2. The most important effect of your vote is on yourself. Over time people come to identify with their previous political commitments. "Digging in" is a much more frequent phenomenon than is "conversion." If you vote libertarian [fill in another other party name here], you will likely become more libertarian over time.

3. So ask yourself whether you wish to become, both publicly and privately, more toward the mainstream or more toward your potential third party vote. Make your decision accordingly.

Only because there is already one instance where point number one does not apply: the 2000 election. The electors were already certified, and would have been certified by Florida legislature, regardless. The SCOTUS intervened to stop the bleeding, not decide the election. If the Court had stayed out (which would have been the preferable option), the House would get to decide whether to accept the Bush electors.

So, in effect, if you lived anywhere else in the country, you would have gotten two votes. One for president, and one for your congressman who would have decided the election. If you lived in Florida, you got up to three votes. One for president, one for your congressman who would have decided the election, and one for your state legislator who voted to certify the electors.

The second two points are completely valid, but the natural scenario is no court involvement whatsoever, even in a close race for president. Of course, races for lesser offices are entirely different, and point one might well apply.

|||108963742931129941|||Further Analysis on Third Parties