AFS Cinema
Naderites, Please Leave Our Election System Alone
RECEIVED Thu., May 13, 2004
Dear Editor:
As the struggle to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in Texas unfolds, it is perhaps useful to make one unquestionable observation. If it were as hard to get on the ballot in Florida as it is in Texas, Al Gore would have been declared the winner of the 2000 election. The confusing ballots in several Florida counties only came about because there were so many candidates.
The primary purpose of an election is to determine who will fill an office. On Election Day, voters must choose which of two or more viable candidates to elect. In the 2000 presidential election, voters could pick Bush, Gore, or neither. It is good that we provided those who choose neither, the disenchanted, with a number of ways to express themselves. Yet it was a disaster when these secondary aims reversed the outcome of the election.
Despite the lessons of 2000, the Nader people seem to think our elections are still too simple. They want improved ballot access for alternate candidates, and some even go so far as to advocate preferential voting where voters rank the candidates. If you don't think Bush vs. Kerry is important enough to take a position on, that's fine, but please leave our election system alone.
As the struggle to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in Texas unfolds, it is perhaps useful to make one unquestionable observation. If it were as hard to get on the ballot in Florida as it is in Texas, Al Gore would have been declared the winner of the 2000 election. The confusing ballots in several Florida counties only came about because there were so many candidates.
The primary purpose of an election is to determine who will fill an office. On Election Day, voters must choose which of two or more viable candidates to elect. In the 2000 presidential election, voters could pick Bush, Gore, or neither. It is good that we provided those who choose neither, the disenchanted, with a number of ways to express themselves. Yet it was a disaster when these secondary aims reversed the outcome of the election.
Despite the lessons of 2000, the Nader people seem to think our elections are still too simple. They want improved ballot access for alternate candidates, and some even go so far as to advocate preferential voting where voters rank the candidates. If you don't think Bush vs. Kerry is important enough to take a position on, that's fine, but please leave our election system alone.
Raymond C. Heitmann