Posted on 09/04/2012 9:37:06 PM PDT by Steelfish
The Nader Effect In Play After Virginia's Decision By Scott Bomboy
A decision in Virginia to allow Virgil Goode on the presidential ballot could shake up the national election. And Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has now come into the spoiler picture.
For the past few weeks, Goode, the Constitutional party presidential candidate, and Johnson have been afterthoughts in the national presidential campaign involving President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
But Goode won the right on Tuesday to appear on the Virginia ballot, in a move that could hurt Romneys chances of taking the key swing state in November.
And now Ron Paul has come with some kind words about Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who will appear on many state ballots as a presidential candidate.
Johnson would be a potential factor in states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and he could hurt either Obama or Romney, depending on how the political winds are blowing by November.
Republicans have vowed to prove that Goode, who has held various political offices in Virginia, doesnt have enough legal petition signatures to run.
Johnson faces similar challenges. Last week, his campaign said the GOP has challenged his ballot presence in Michigan, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Iowa and Ohio.
In August, Goode lost his quest to get on Pennsylvanias ballot. One national poll had Johnson with 5.3 percent of the national vote in July, while a poll this summer in Virginia had Goode with 9 percent of that states presidential vote.
In reality, even 1 percent of the vote in a battleground state could determine the national election, like Ralph Nader did in 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You are correct, tnlibertarian. This would be done at the state level since states determine how the electors are selected. That’s why this doesn’t have anything to do with the founding fathers, the Constitution or the electoral college.
Bottom line, if presidential election runoffs aren’t implemented, it’s only a matter of time before the Democrats realize all they have to do is fund a third party conservative candidate, even if they’re a total fake, and they can probably guarantee the Republicans will lose the election every time in many states. I believe they already got caught trying to do this in a NJ election a couple years ago. So I predict presidential runoff elections will happen eventually, but probably not until it’s too late and much damage has been done by not simply asking voters all the necessary questions on the ballot.
And the idea of spending time fighting to keep people off the ballot is just plain stupid, when all you need to do is reform the ballot to ask voters the right questions and a third party would be no threat. You don’t even need to hold an actual runoff election, and I think it’s better if you don’t, since you don’t have to worry about who would show up again. You just have to have a properly formed ballot that asks voters who their second choice pick is if their first choice doesn’t win.
None of these are new ideas. Many smaller elections already implement regular runoffs and instant ballot runoffs. The reasoning behind it has nothing to do with politics, just with the most basic, simple logic. If 55% of the voters would prefer Bush or Perot to Clinton, then it’s pure stupidity to think that Clinton won any kind of election with only 45% of the vote. The concept of voting itself should hinge on the fact that over 50% of the people must agree on something before it moves forward.
Let's look at an example. If Texas didn't have runoffs in their Senate primary, Dewhurst would have won. He had 44.6% in the first primary election and Ted Cruz only had 34.2%. Because Dewhurst didn't hit 50%, they held a runoff between the top two, and Ted Cruz beat him 54% to 46%. That's because a whole lot of people wanted to vote against Dewhurst in the primary, but their vote was split among several candidates. If states ran presidential votes the same way, we would've had a runoff between Clinton and Bush and Clinton might've lost enough additional states to lose the election.
You would have to explain to me why it's preferable to have elections decided by a minority of voters instead of a majority. Nobody's saying to turn us into a pure democracy, but if you ARE going to hold a vote on something, shouldn't what the majority of the voters want be upheld?
Not me!
Why do you think that if people know the truth about Romney they will have to vote for Obama? I don’t. Many conservatives feel they have to hold their nose and vote. I understand, been there done that. My hope is that they may give some thought to how we got here. I used to blame the liberal RINOs but I know it is my fault also. Every time I held my nose and voted I was giving them the thumbs up sign. I don’t have the solution but I know what I was doing will not work.
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