Daily Archives: December 6, 2020

It's Webathon Sunday, which means it's time to check in on how Reason staffers have been doing these past 12 months representing libertarian viewpoints in non-Reason media/politics spaces. But first a quick exhortation to all you wonderful readers and listeners and viewers:

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You know who's killing it this year? Reason's Corey A. DeAngelis, that's who. Not just with his conversation-shaping research about how public school closures correlate much more strongly with union power than COVID-19 spread, not just with his December magazine feature on how the virus is accelerating the demise of the public school monopoly model, but with his tireless advocacy for educational freedom wherever people are talking about school policy and the novel coronavirus. Which, this year, is everywhere.

Here is the Reason Foundation's director of school choice just this week on The Adam Carolla Show, whose eponymous host observed, "This guy Corey knows more than anybody."

Corey over the past year caught Sen. Elizabeth Warren (DMass.) lying about her son's private school education, kept tabs on the latest COVID-19/school developments on his popular Twitter feed, and oh yeah, just made one of those Forbes "30 Under 30" lists. From that write-up:

DeAngelis is one of the nation's leading authorities on school choice and homeschooling. He has authored or co-authored 32 peer-reviewed studies and more than 100 op-eds in outlets like The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. He's done hundreds of speaking engagements and appears regularly on Fox News.

In this big no bueno of a year, where TV greenrooms are closed, presidential politics are suffocating, and the dread virus continues to cloud the judgment of so very many people (especially elected officials), it has been a challenge to fulfill longtime Reason hero Bob Poole's long-ago vision to "engage in the battle of ideas with the whole spectrum of thinking people."

Reason of course loves, nurtures, and constantly expands its own platforms, but as 1980s editor Marty Zupan told Brian Doherty in his must-read oral history of the magazine, "It was obviousthat if Reasonwanted to grow, it needed to do more than have libertarians talking to one another." A key part of our mission to "influence the frameworks and actions of policymakers, journalists, and opinion leaders," is to insert ourselves wherever people are talking about politics, policy, and culture.

In bookstores, browsers come face to face with Reason arguments, most recently in Damon Root's A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution, and Ronald Bailey's Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting (with Marian L. Tupy). When Bari Weiss exited The New York Times, Robby Soave went on cable television's most-watched program to broaden the discussion into how "people with totally mundane views are being canceled before our eyes" by a loud minority of mainstream journalists who are increasingly creating "toxic environment[s] for everyone who disagrees with them." And when yet another Trump voter seeks to blame libertarians for President-elect Joe Biden's coming reign of terror, Nick Gillespie is ready to appear on Fox airwaves to argue that "Virtually any time you look at something that is good that's happening in America, when you get there, libertarians will be opening the door for you, saying 'Come on in.'"

That last clip, of course, comes from Reason's great friend (and former correspondent!) Kennedy, whose eponymous Fox Business Network program is the single most welcoming televisual home for us waving the banner of "Free Minds and Free Markets." I had the great honor of working alongside the former MTV veejay in developing and executing the precursor show to Kennedy, called The Independents (along with some bum named Kmele Foster), and I will forever be in her debt for completing the job (as much as such things can be completed) that our own John Stossel started: teaching a poorly dressed, California-talking, write-first slouch like me to do a reasonable facsimile of television.

Oh yeah, Kennedy's also a Webathon donor!

DON'T YOU WANT TO BE AS COOL AS KENNEDY??

The fun part about doing broadcast is that you never know whether a stray word or sentence will ruin your career, land with a deafening thud, or improbably strike a chord with people. I experienced the latter recently after delivering an uncharacteristically profane rant on the great Compound Media program, Mornin'!!! w/ Bill Schulz and Joanne Nosuchinsky, as Reason contributor Nancy Rommelmann looks around for the exits:

Sorry/not sorry! Long story short, going out into the non-Reason world and making principled libertarian arguments is a key part of our mission, as is encouraging the proliferation of Reason-friendly programming. Your donations make that all possible.

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Excerpt from:

Be Cool Like Kennedy! Donate to Reason, and Help Us Spread #HotFreedom - Reason

Written by Julian Savulescu and Alberto Giubilini

The government has reportedly flirted with the introduction of vaccination passports that would afford greater freedoms to people who have been vaccinated for COVID-19. However, the UKs Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove, recently announced that vaccination passports are not currently under consideration in the UK. However, the issue may linger and businesses may introduce such requirements.

One of us (JS) defended immunity passports in the context of affording people with natural immunity greater freedom during lockdown, if immunity significantly reduces the risk of infecting others.

Vaccination passportsafter vaccines have been made availablecan be seen as a mild form of mandatory vaccination. Proof of vaccination could be a requirement to, for example, access certain places (e.g. restaurants, hospitals, public transport, etc, depending on how restrictive we want the mandate to be) or engaging in certain social activities (e.g. mixing with people from different households) or enable health care or other care workers to not self-isolate if in contact with a person with COVID (there were 35 000 NHS workers in isolation at the peak of the pandemic because of contact). It is worth noting that this kind of measure has already been in place globally for a long time in a more selective way, e.g. in the US where, in most states, children cannot be enrolled in schools unless they are up to date with certain vaccinations. These are also a form of vaccination passports, which simply do not use that term. Yellow Fever Vaccination Certificates are required to travel to certain parts of the world where Yellow Fever is endemic.

The ethical ground for restriction of liberty is a person represents a threat of harm to others. That is, the grounds for lockdown, quarantine, isolation or mandating vaccination is to reduce the risk one person poses to another. However, if a person is no longer a threat to others, the justification for coercion evaporates. If either natural immunity or a vaccine prevents virus transmission to others (and this remains to be determined), the grounds for restricting liberty disappear. This is one argument for an immunity or vaccination passport it proves you are not a threat to others.

Moreover, if we thought there were sufficient grounds for the drastic and long lasting restrictions of individual liberties entailed by lockdowns and isolation requirements, it is at least legitimate to ask whether there are also sufficient grounds for vaccination passports, given that the individual cost imposed getting vaccinated is likely to be much smaller than the cost entailed by those other measures (unless the risks of vaccines are significant).

However, the more effective a vaccine is, the greater the opportunity for individuals to protect themselves. A Libertarian could then argue that the risk of harming others is nullified. If you want to protect yourself, you can vaccinate yourself. If this is true, then a vaccine doesnt need to give us herd immunity. We can take individual responsibility.

Many objections can be raised against vaccination passports. For example, it is not clear to what extent vaccines will reduce transmission. However, this is something which can be addressed by science: we can work out whether natural or vaccine immunity prevents transmission by empirical work, such as employing challenge studies or other experimental designs. If it turns out that immunity is a short-lived phenomenon, then, assuming large enough availability and easy enough access to the vaccine, passports could simply be renewed with a new vaccination, in the same way as we periodically renew normal passports in order to be allowed to travel in certain countries.

Others would argue that this is the step towards an authoritarian regime which restricts liberty. However, liberty is already extraordinarily infringed by lockdown and it is hard to see how immunity passports could be worse in this respect. Indeed, it could also be argued that vaccination passports would actually increase peoples liberties: if the baseline is lockdown, having the option to leave increases options (of course, this assumes lockdowns are valid).

An analogy one of us (JS) has given in the media is with smoking in the workplace. This freedom can legitimately be restricted to ensure workplace safety and to prevent harm to others by passive smoking. Going to work unvaccinated, JS argued, is like smoking in the workplace.

But actually, there is a major disanalogy here. There is nothing you can reasonably do to protect yourself if you are non-smoker from passive smoking in the workplace. You have to breathe the air. But there is something that you can do to protect yourself from COVID-19: get vaccinated yourself.

Thus, the strongest argument against vaccination passports is that there is something people can choose to do to lower their own risk: get vaccinated. This is what makes the strongest case against vaccination passports stronger than the strongest case against immunity passports (which could be obtained after immunity is mounted through natural infection): the choice to reduce their personal risk by vaccination is more reasonable and safer than the choice to get voluntarily infected in order to acquire immunity.

So the argument that, for example, airlines like Qantas need to protect their staff and other passengers by requiring everyone to be vaccinated and to prove it through vaccination passports is flawed. Staff and passengers who are concerned about infection can choose to be vaccinated and protect themselves. It doesnt require others to be vaccinated, or so the libertarian would reply.

This stance of course assumes vaccines are highly effective. We are told that some of them might be more than 90% effective although these are only preliminary, not peer-reviewed data. Paradoxically, the less effective they are, the weaker the libertarian objection becomes because the less people can reliably protect themselves. When effectiveness is low, we need more people vaccinated to maximize the chances of achieving herd immunity

Importantly, there will be people who cant be vaccinated for medical reasons they require herd immunity. The libertarians response could be that they can protect themselves through social isolation. And given that this will be relatively rare, then the argument might be that it is a reasonable cost to pay rather, compared to infringing upon the liberty of a whole society by requiring vaccination passports to enjoy certain freedoms.

However, we need to consider not only how rare these cases are, but also the size of the costs involved. It seems reasonable to require the majority to pay a small cost (e.g. to be vaccinated, assuming the vaccine is very low risk) in order to prevent a very large cost (e.g. self-isolation) to a minority. After all, many policies are structured in this way. For example, wehave parking spots allocated to people with disabilities and which are typically less likely to be occupied, and placed in more convenient locations. The majority of people pay a small cost having to park further away or spending more time looking for a spot to park in order to prevent a large cost to people with disabilities who might have significant difficulties if they had to park further away.

The best response to the libertarian argument may be that it is important to protect those in whom vaccination is not effective, those whose immunity wanes and those who cant get vaccinated for medical reasons. If we really value liberty, the liberty of these persons to enjoy as normal a life as possible without unnecessary risks weighs in favour of introducing vaccination passports.

However, in the end, as with most practical ethics we must weigh competing reasons: liberty, well-being, for the worst off vs the wider population. Hopefully the vaccines will be effective, safe and in sufficient supply and sufficiently attractive to enough people to achieve herd immunity quickly then people can make their own decisions

See original here:

The Libertarian Argument Is the Best Argument Against Immunity Passports. But is it good enough? - Practical Ethics

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Washington Examiner commentary writer Tiana Lowe joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss her recent article, Hillbilly Elegy hate proves J.D. Vances importance to conservatism, and how millennials from a wide range of positions within the right are reshaping it.

I think that millennials have to stop letting boomers and specifically the boomer establishment hijack every movement that actually comes from the grassroots, Lowe said.

According to Lowe, there are many opportunities for conservative and libertarian millennials to capitalize on their generations distrust in elite institutions and use it to reshape the party to unite against power-hungry, money-grabbing universities and human rights abuser communist China.

There could be some unity where we see an inherently unfair system, Lowe said.In a sane world, China should be the unifying issue.

Quite frankly, there is a niche issue for everyone in there, she added.

Read more from the original source:

From Libertarians To Nationalists, Millennials Are Shaping The New Right - The Federalist

Libertarian party Girchi is known on the Georgian political scene for its original approach. It appears to have a growing appeal among younger voters tired of the more mainstream parties.

December 4, 2020 - Eva Modebadze- Articles and Commentary

Photo: eflon flickr.com

In many old and new democracies, the politicalnihilism of young people is a serious concern. Many young people find itchallenging to navigate the advancement of populist ideologies, economictension, fake news, media manipulation and distrust in politics at large. Inemerging Eastern European democracies, where for a long time politics has beenmonopolised by Soviet-style governance, young people have been marginalisedfrom meaningful political participation and disillusioned by the traditionalconduct of politics. While young peoples distrust in political institutionsoften results in lower turnout in elections and lowparticipation in local or national politics, one small political party in post-SovietGeorgia may have found a solution. This party is called Girchi, whichtranslates from Georgian to pinecone a symbol of freshness and enlightenment. Girchi, after just fouryears of political existence, mainly supported by young people, won 2.9 percent of the vote in the 2020 parliamentary elections. Even though most of the oppositionparties including Girchi declared the elections rigid and refused to enter theparliament, it does not change the fact that the party managed to secure atleast four mandates in the 150-strong parliament, outnumbering many larger andexperienced political parties.

Libertarian Girchi is well-known for its grotesque and extraordinary, even slightly freakish, actions, such as opening a brothel in its headquarters, planting marijuana seeds, begging for money at the presidential palace in protest, renting out the leader Zurab Japaridze for New Years Eve, placing a campaign Ad on PornHub and establishing a religious organisation with the sole purpose of helping young men avoid compulsory military service. However, behind its outlandish behaviour, Girchi has a clear political agenda based on libertarianism and classical liberalism advocating for liberty as a fundamental principle, small and transparent government with less bureaucracy and economic liberalism. Girchis liberal democratic formula is simple: economic deregulation leads to prosperity, and prosperity is a prerequisite of democracy and welfare.

Of course, itwould be wrong to assume that we need parties like Girchi because they offersolutions to various crises that current political systems face. Girchissuccess formula seems even too simplistic deregulationof the economy cannot be the panacea for the countrys prosperity. Moreover,Girchi has little to offer when it comes to healthcare, social security,womens participation in politics and environmental problems. However, the politicalpluralism that Girchi offers is essential in challenging the conception thatpolitics is the work of men and women in suits. With its open distrust in Soviet-style biggovernment and the old-fashioned way of conducting politics, on numerousoccasions the party has presented itself as a channel for Georgian youthpolitical participation. With its honesty, complete absence of populism anddevotion to the partys liberal ideals, Girchi managed to enter the mainstream,bringingfreshness into redefining and challenging how politics can and should be done. By that, Pinecone has become anacceptable political force not only to those with the same outlook on politics,but also to some die-hard leftists like myself.

Explaining Girchis success

Before trying to understand Girchis success amongst the young population, the term youth needs to be defined. Who is the youth in Georgia? There are at least three widely-used definitions of youth as a life stage, as a social group and as a generation. In Georgia, youth can be primarily defined as a generation of people born after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the independent country of Georgia. If we borrow the EUs usage of the term, this classification combines Generation Y people born in the 1990s and Generation Z (born in the 2000s).

Young people are considered to be holders of certainvalues and attitudes, sometimes completelydifferent from those of older generations. Some studies underline that youthtend to be more progressive and democratic. This is especially visible in manypost-Soviet states, including Georgia. Even though young peoples values andattitudes largely depend on the social groups and institutions in which theysocialise, with increasing access to the internet and digitalisation, youngpeople are less dependent on the social groups around them, whether it befamily, friends or local community. The changes brought by wide access toinformation and, of course, the disappearance of Soviet ideology made the youthmore independent decision-makers.

Girchi successfully took advantage of rapiddigitalisation and based its pre-election campaign entirely on the internet. Bydoing this, the party also made an indirect focus on younger supporters, whoare generally more digitally-educated consumers of the internet. Interestingly,for the 2020 parliamentary elections Girchi refused to have paid commercialson TV, billboards or any other paid advertisements. Instead, the party basedits entire campaign on GirchisFacebook Page,attracting supporters with creative videos and hashtags # (#historicalvideos) and # (#girchiintheparliament).The leader of the party, Zurab Girchi Japaridze (who added Girchi as his middlename as a tribute to the party), explained this decision by simply statingthat Facebooks free platform was the way to go since they did not haverecourses for an expensive election campaign. It has to be mentioned thatGirchi functions entirely from donations. The list of donors is transparent andavailable to the broader public. Furthermore, after donating, each donorbecomes Girchis partner and gets GeD (Girch Digital Currency) equivalent to thedonated amount, which means that every donor gets involved in Girchispolitical functioning.

The leader of the party explained the partys success by stating, Girchi has the most sincere and heartfelt supporters, who believe in the party idea. Japaridze says that none of the other political parties in Georgia have as many people sincerely devoted to the core idea as they do in Girchi. Indeed, Girchis internet campaign was the opposite of populism and was entirely dedicated to ideas of classical liberalism. Instead of giving appealing promises about social benefits in a country where the average salary is around 300 euros, Girchi advocates for an idea that is not very popular state deregulation in every aspect, letting the invisible hand decide.

With not so appealing messages for the wider public, Girchi has been an avid advocate of the youths increased participation in politics. The party even released a video explaining what happens when young people do not vote. The video narrates, Just because you do not go to elections, politicians give promises to your grandmas and grandpas. Because young people do not vote, informs Girchi, politicians target older voters by focusing on raising pensions. The video claims that the fact that politicians are neither speaking to nor caring about young people getting a better education, having decent jobs nor enjoying their lives is the result of young people not voting in elections. Japaridze believes Girchi is the party of the future, and hopes to attract voters who support decentralisation and minimalisation of state power. Girchis pacifist rhetoric and active support of non-violence in a country with two unresolved territorial conflicts and the experience of civil war proved successful among younger liberal-minded youth. Asked the question of which political party stands closest to you, 40 per cent of Georgians aged between 18-35 say that there is no party, while 5 per cent support Girchi, making it the third party after the two mainstream parties Georgian Dream and United National Movement. Amongst supporters of Girchi, not surprisingly, 84 per cent are aged between 18-35, 12 per centbetween 36-55 and only 4 per cent above 56.

Which party is closestto you? (2019)

Source:CRRC, Caucasus Barometer

Why do we need parties like Pinecone?

So why do we need parties like Girchi? There is nodoubt that citizens inclusive political participation and their ability toinfluence political decision-making is one of the key tenets of democraticpolitics. Increased inclusion of the youth in the formal political process notonly upholds key principles of democracy, but also increases representativeness.That is why liberal-minded parties like Girchi are essential in building thetrust of younger voters in the political system, empowering them to participatein formal political processes and offering a brand-new outlook on the conductof politics, without challenging core democratic values.

Throughout recent decades, European politics has seen increasing popularity of far-right and far-left populist parties. Anti-globalisation, Euroscepticism, protectionism, objection to elitism and support for expanding the welfare state have been common features of parties from both ends of the ideological spectrum. Considering these trends, post-Soviet Georgias Girchi has the potential to become an example of how to bring freshness into staggering European democracies and unite the youth around core libertarian principles. Even though Girchis socially-irresponsible policies, support for marijuana legalisation and other ludicrous statements make it unattractive to older generations, especially in conservative Georgia, it is important that Girchi offers a solution for disenfranchised and disillusioned youth to see alternative politics without having to resort to radical forms of populism or complete nihilism. Girchis anti-establishment attitudes are not just old wine in a new bottle Pinecone utilises a completely new toolkit for alternative politics. This new toolkit is based on strong support for the idea that creativity can be useful in attracting youth to meaningful political participation and lending their voices to the formal decision-making process.

Eva Modebadzeis a postgraduate student at the International Masters programme in Central and Eastern European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CEERES) at the University of Glasgow, UK. Her particular field of interest includes gender and security studies in the post-Soviet space.

Dear Readers -New Eastern Europe is a not-for-profit publication that has been publishing online and in print since 2011. Our mission is to shape the debate, enhance understanding, and further the dialogue surrounding issues facing the states that were once a part of the Soviet Union or under its influence.But we can only achieve this mission with the support of our donors.If you appreciate our work please consider making a donation.

Georgia, Georgian politics, South Caucasus, Youth

Read more:

Pinecone: The fringe political party saving the youth from political nihilism in Georgia - New Eastern Europe

Here at Reason, we're gonna need a bigger website to keep fighting for free minds and free markets.

Welcome to Day 2 of Reason's annual webathon, when we ask you to make fully tax-deductible donations to support our print, online, video, and audio journalism that promotes a principled, libertarian vision of the world. If you like our articles, videos, podcasts, and media appearances, please dig deep to help us increase the quality and quantity of our output. We're hoping to raise $200,000, all of which will go to publishing more articles, videos, and podcasts.

Go here to get info on swag associated with different giving levels and to make secure donations in everything from dollars to Bitcoin. We can't do it without youand we wouldn't want to, either (yes, we read the comments, emails, messages, and tweets).

2020 has been the most insane, unpredictable, awful year that most of us will ever live through. Between the novel coronavirus pandemic, the poorly implemented lockdowns that put the economy in a medically induced coma, months of righteous protests and indefensible looting, an insane presidential election season that just won't end, and more, we are all bruised, angry, and deeply worried about the future.

2021 won't just be another year. The battles (and budgets) are going to get bigger before they get better. For over 50 years, Reason has been your libertarian voice in debates about politics, culture, and ideas. I've been with Reason since 1993 and can say with certainty that your donation this time around is more important than ever. So please, give what you can.

Read this article:

'We're Gonna Need a Bigger Website' - Reason

More voters have opted for third party candidates and write-in votes over the past four election cycles. Despite this increase, third parties still struggle to be a viable option for American voters in the two-party system. The last third-party candidate to win any electoral votes was George Wallace in 1986, winning five southern states on the platform, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

In 2016, unlike most third party candidates the mainstream media covered Libertarian candidate Gary Johnsons campaign. The Green Party and Libertarian Presidential candidates in 2020 have not permeated the minds of American voters as widely. As of September 2020, 40% of American voters identify themselves as independents, leaving 29% for Republicans and 30% for Democrats.

Although the size of third parties could indicate their lack of significance, Sean Goff and Daniel J. Lee argue the importance of third parties and their value for American democracy in their journal, Prospects for Third Party Success in a Polarized Era. In a polarizing time in Americas political history, third parties and journeying away from the two-party system could be the solution to the hyper-divisive politics of recent years. Either way, Goff and Lee assert that third parties have historically played an important role in instigating change in the major parties.

One of the most challenging aspects of running third party is in fact getting on the ballot at all. The requirements are different in every state but usually entail getting a specific number of signatures. In the state of Georgia, 36,180 signatures were required (1% of voters eligible to vote in the last election) to run for one Senate seat, while the other was only available to qualified parties. The number of signatures varied for the U.S. House of Representatives seats, but if unaffiliated parties were allowed to run, the signature requirement was 5% of registered voters in the district in the last election.

Ease of ballot access ranges from state to state, with Georgia being notorious for its difficulty for minor parties. Arizona, for instance, requires all candidates to petition. Affiliated candidates (Democartic, Republican, and Libertarian) must garner signatures from 0.5% of qualified voters, and unaffiliated candidates need signatures from 3% of qualified voters.

John Fortuin, a Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, said that the most difficult part of getting on the ballot is obtaining enough signatures, and COVID-19 has not helped.

Covid has had a major impact and unlike other states that have fairer requirements for qualifications for third parties and independents, Georgia did not allow electronic signature collection and did not significantly reduce the signature collection requirement, Fortuin said.

The lack of accommodation for minor parties in the upcoming election resulted in a lawsuit by the Green Party of Georgia.

Jimmy Cooper, Green Party candidate for Georgias 8th congressional district for the U.S. House of Representatives and Hugh Esco, secretary for the Georgia Green Party, acted as litigants in this process.

The state of Georgia did not offer a good response to the pandemic. Because of the pandemic we werent able to launch an effective ballot access campaign, Cooper said.

Petitioning for signatures often requires knocking door to door and attending large events, both of which have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Georgia was still in a state of emergency and in lock down. The Secretary of States office offered a 30% reduction in signatures needed, not a reasonable response in Coopers eyes.

It is extremely hard, and in my opinion irresponsible, to try and collect signatures during a pandemic, he said. The guidelines are already prohibitive.

The number [of signatures] are only there to keep us off the ballot, Jimmy Cooper said.

Esco shared a similar sentiment. According to him, the motivation behind the restrictive 1943 ballot access laws was less than pure. The original motivation for this 5% statue which was adopted in 1943 was to keep communists and republicans off the ballot, Esco said.

He detailed a history in which the surrounding racial tension and communism during World War II cultivated a desire to restrict access to the ballot.

Esco details the connections between increase in Black military service and ballot restriction above.

An article for the Seattle Law Review in 2010 by Oliver Hall titled Death by a Thousand Signatures: The Rise of Restrictive Ballot Access Laws and the Decline of Electoral Competition in the United States details similar ideas. It cites the red scare after World War I as a primary motivation for restricting ballot access. It says in fact, that the first elections in the United States did not require ballot access laws at all.

Third parties challenging the legality of such restrictions is not new either. Williams v. Rhodes was the first minor party challenge to a modern ballot access law, according to Hall. In 2016 the Green Party was successful in getting the state of Georgia to reduce the number of signatures for presidential candidates from 54,000 to 7,500.

The case in question, Green Party of GA v. Kemp, also cites similar motivations in the historical restriction of ballot access. The case reads that plaintiffs assert that this requirement [5% signature rule] was adopted as a means of prohibiting Republicans, Communists, and Black people from accessing the Georgia ballot. The defendant contested this assertion. The Supreme Court has also upheld the 5% ballot access laws.

Despite past success and the extenuating circumstances of the pandemic, the judge of the court case this year upheld the procedures the Secretary of State set out, a 30% reduction of signatures.

Fortuin is running in the special election race against incumbent Kelly Loeffler. He claims that the special elections are the closest Georgia law comes to a fair shot for third parties and independents. The other enormous obstacle to fair elections in Georgia and for true voter choice is the absence of ranked choice voting in this state, said Fortuin.

Ranked choice voting is an electoral system in which voters would have the opportunity to rank candidates by their preference, according to Ballotpedia. In this system, if a candidate wins a majority of the first preference votes, they are declared the winner. If, however, they do not, the candidate with the fewest amount of first preference votes is eliminated, and the results are calculated with the second preference votes taken into account.

This would allow, at least hypothetically, the possibility for third-party and independent candidates to become more of a threat to the major parties. Fortuin illustrated this using the 2016 election. Some voters may have ranked Hillary Clinton first, Bernie Sanders second, and a Green or Libertarian Party as their third option, while leaving Donald Trump blank. It is possible, if not likely, that voters on either side of the spectrum wouldve preferred a third-party candidate to the opposing major party candidate. The current winner-takes-all system doesnt account for voter preference.

There have been folks that claim they are progressive democrats or libertarian minded folks who claim you must vote with the two major parties, however you never hear the same persons who are trying to force and guilt trip citizens into voting for the major parties advocate for ranked choice voting, Fortuin said. In his view, this is inherently dishonest if they do not mention ranked choice voting as a way to solve the so-called spoiler problem.

Cooper agreed that a ranked choice voting system would aid third parties as it wouldnt give voters the idea that their only choices were either the Democratic or Republican parties.

Democrats like to pretend that they own our vote, that somehow were beholden to them, said Hugh Esco.

Fortuin claims that voting systems now in Georgia are un-auditable on purpose. Ive dedicated decades of my life fighting against corrupt democrats [and republicans] and their steadfast support of computerized voting systems that are not dependent on a paper ballot that can be audited, he said.

Ballot access requirements in terms of percentage of signatures needed to run in a race need to be reduced 100-fold, said Fortuin. He would like to see Georgias requirements for signatures brought down to as low as 63, as opposed to the 6,000 he had to collect. Many countries have no requirements for petitioning to get on the ballot. We really do need to look at best practices abroad as well as domestically to model our democracy on, he said.

Charles Bullock, professor of political science at the University of Georgia (UGA), specializing in southern politics, legislative politics and elections, was not convinced that third parties will make much of a dent in November this year. All the evidence says theres a very small share of the electorate thats not committed to Biden or Trump, Bullock said.

There could be something to the idea of a ranked voting system, however. Bullock said that he can see movement in the direction of that kind of system in Georgia. I could imagine in the next few years there would be some discussion in the general assembly. I think the context in which this will be pushed is for primary elections but not necessarily general elections, he said. Among some reasons, this system in the primaries would eliminate the need for run-off elections, which struggle from low voter turnout, Bullock claimed. I would not be surprised to see Georgia adopt that for primaries, whether they extend that to general, Im not so sure, Bullock said.

One thing Bullock is sure of is that its very difficult to get on the ballot in Georgia as a third-party candidate.

Unless a person is fairly delusional, they dont anticipate that a third-party candidate is likely to win,said Charles Bullock.

Many third-party votes, according to him, are protest votes, throw away votes, or votes hoping that in the future the party will have more influence.

Another option, Bullock said, is to not vote at all. He said hes heard this specifically from progressives, who say Biden isnt liberal enough. Some of those folks are beginning to rethink that as a result of the vacancy on the Supreme Court, he said, in reference to the recent death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Regardless of if third-party votes continue the trend of increasing this November, there seems to be movement in the direction of a different voting system. Distrust in the two party system and major party candidates could push American voters to a ranked choice voting system and into the welcoming arms of minor parties.

Meg Hansen is a senior majoring in religion and journalism in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

Here is the original post:

The Trials and Tribulations of Third-Party Candidates - University of Georgia