The Global Citizen					August 3, 2000

GETTING BEYOND THE CHOICE BETWEEN TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE
The complaints continue to pour in:
"Why are you writing columns about voting for Ralph Nader?  How can you actively aid and abet the election of that dolt George Bush?  You can think better than that."
And so does the applause:
"I believe that you will never regret voting on the basis of your conscience, and neither will I."
On the letters page of gristmagazine.com, folks are attacking not just me but each other, with gusto:
"The bottom line is that the majority rules in this country.  Whoever is elected gets to call the shots for the next four years, and I don't think the environment can take four years of Texas-style environmentalism."
"Let's stop always taking the short view.  That's just what Tweedledum and Tweedledee want you to do.  They don't want you to make a real choice."
"George the Shrub will undo all the environmental progress we have made in my lifetime, turn education on its head, and turn the Supreme Court over to the radical religious right.  These are outcomes so unacceptably evil that a protest vote for Nader looks ridiculous."
"People are voting for Gore out of fear, not because they think he will make a good president.  Sticking to what we believe is the only way to get real change."
These embattled folks actually share the same goal.  They want to vote for an honest person rather than a packaged image, for someone who is not sold to the highest bidders, for someone who will fight for the people, the environment, fairness, justice.  Their anger with each other is mainly anger at the limited, crummy choice they face.  Vote for Nader and get Bush.  Or vote for Gore and get Gore.
But there are people who refuse to be squeezed into that narrow box.
The great Texas columnist Molly Ivins, for example, says that Nader "has done more real good for this country than both [major] candidates added together and multiplied."  But she's from Bush country and emphatically does not want to do anything that might help him become president.  "The lesser of two evils does make a difference."
So for the short term, she says, tell everyone, especially pollsters, that you're voting for Nader.  If he gets 15 percent in the polls, he'll be in the presidential debates, with a chance to show up the two Tweedles.
When it comes to the actual election, she says, if you're in a state with a certain outcome, like her own Texas that will go for Dubya, or Massachusetts that will go for Gore, you can freely vote for Nader, throw a scare into the Tweedle-parties, and help the Greens get recognition and campaign funds.  If you're in a state where the outcome is close, she says, "why don't we see how it looks in November?"
The irrepressible Michael Moore has an even better strategy (see www.michaelmoore.com).  Under the title "Bush and Gore Make Me Wanna Ralph," he urges everyone who likes Gore to vote for Gore.  "In fact I insist on it, even if you are just throwing your vote away."  He urges the nation's largest party -- the 55 percent who are so disgusted they do not vote -- to come out for one last-gasp attempt to save our democracy.
"What if you drove down to that stinky gym where the little shell game behind the pretend curtains is taking place, walk in, sign in, take the ballot they hand you, and toss yourselves inside the booth like a political Molotov cocktail?"
"You wanna tell me there's a choice here between two guys who both support NAFTA, WTO, the death penalty, the Cuban embargo, increased Pentagon spending, sleazy HMOs, 250 million guns in our homes, the rich getter richer and the rest of us declaring bankruptcy?"
"Boom!  Not me.  I'm voting for Ralph Nader."
Since otherwise the no-shows would have voted for no one, they won't take a single vote from Gore.  There are 100 million of them.  In 1996 Bill Clinton won with 47 million votes.  It shouldn't be hard to "make history by putting a true American hero at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
For the longer term, why should we put up with an electoral system that gives us nothing but choices between lesser evils?  There are more intelligent alternatives.  One is the proportional Parliamentary system practiced in most industrial democracies.  I see people stick up their noses at it, but I never see why; it seems to allow a fairer hearing to a wider spectrum of views than does our winner-take-all system.
Another intriguing possibility is the instant runoff, practiced in Ireland and Australia.  In this system you mark your ballot with your first, second, and third choice.  In the first round only first-choice votes are counted.  If no candidate wins a majority, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated, and those whose first choice was that eliminated candidate automatically weigh in with their second choice.
That would take away the agony of having to vote for your second choice just to keep someone you despise from winning.  It would be even better combined it with a feature of Russian elections.  On Russian ballots there is always a choice called "none of the above."  If a majority of voters choose "none of the above," all candidates are disqualified.  The parties must keep trying until they come up with a slate of possibilities that the people can actually stomach.
Give us instant runoffs with "none of the above," and our elections would be so interesting, everyone would turn out!  (For more on alternative voting systems, see www.fairvote.org.)
Of course no president from either Tweedle-party would think of leading a charge toward that kind of geniune democracy.  You know who would?  Here's a hint: the Green Party already uses instant runoffs for its presidential nominations.
(Donella Meadows is an adjunct professor at Dartmouth College and director of the Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont.)