Trading With the Enemy

By Scott Harris, AlterNet. Posted September 14, 2004.

Austin King remembers his favorite bumper-sticker from Election 2000: "Bush and Gore make me want to Ralph." The Green Party activist couldn't stomach lily-livered liberals who warned that, because of the Electoral College, "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush." And when King learned about NaderTraders.org, a Web site that urged Ralph Nader supporters in swing states like his own Wisconsin to strategically "trade votes" with Gore backers in partisan strongholds like Texas, King responded with his own sign: "Don't Be A Nader Traitor!"

"I thought I was pretty clever," recalls King, who has since been elected to the City Council in Madison. That was then. "I like to think I'm capable of intellectual growth."

President George W. Bush has now transformed King and other leading Green activists into repentant advocates for the pragmatic approach they scorned in 2000: vote trading. This tactic, almost unthinkable before the advent of the Internet, encourages citizens to turn the Electoral College tables on Bush by pairing progressives in swing states like Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania with frustrated Democrats in Republican-red strongholds like Texas, Utah or Wyoming, or Democrats in true-blue states like Massachusetts.

Just like that, two voters cooperate to resolve their common dilemmas and accomplish a common objective: providing an modern antidote to the inequities of the Electoral College, an arcane, archaic system that is historically rooted in the founding fathers' notorious compromise in which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a human being.

Several techies who were independently involved in the provocative, trailblazing 2000 vote-trading movement have now combined brainpower on a Web site called VotePair.org, which features an introductory "splash page" that explains the effort and invites people to "sign up to be notified when our vote pairing service launches on September 20, 2004." Other web sites are also anticipated, including some that tilt Libertarian and some that are ostensibly nonpartisan. The Votepair.org activists, whose various efforts in 2000 were damaged by a constitutionally dubious crackdown by a few Republican state election officials, say they are now prepared for legal combat should it come.

Tricks of the Trade

Abraham Gutmann, a Green Party leader in New Mexico and a co-founder of Greens For Kerry, offers his own experience to explain why the strategy is needed and how it works. In 2000, Gutmann loyally cast his ballot for Nader and felt his anxiety build before a final tally showed Gore squeaked out a 366-vote victory. This time, Gutmann plans to vote for Kerry, having already secured his father-in-law's promise to vote Green in the Democratic stronghold of Hawaii. If Greens like Gutmann and King and operations like VotePair.org can find enough Americans willing to form such alliances across state lines, the result could be – from their point of view – coldly delicious poetic justice: This time, Bush could win the popular vote – and lose the presidency.

And this time, Greens could claim a share of the credit, rather than incur the blame.

Progressive activists have organized two groups that are embracing the so-called "safe state" strategy that emphasizes building the Green Party in partisan states while backing Kerry in swing states. Greens For Kerry, whose slogan is "Register Green. Vote Kerry. Beat Bush," actively promotes the vote-pairing tactic. Greens For Impact, which includes King, has not formally endorsed the strategy, but will probably post links to VotePair.org and similar sites. "We're by no means against it, but we're not taking it on," says GFI chairman David Segal, a city councilman in Providence, Rhode Island.

Green Party nominee David Cobb, unlike Nader in 2000, isn't denouncing the vote-trading idea: "Their strategy is not my strategy. I say register Green and vote Green." But Cobb says he respects the Greens who have staked out vote-pairing and a "safe state" strategy and feels no sense of betrayal. Unlike the Green candidate in 2000, Cobb sees a distinct difference between the major party nominees: "Kerry is bad but Bush is much worse . . . Bush is a genuine threat to the planet."

Nader's campaign – he is on the ballot as an Independent in some states, as the Reform Party candidate in others – threatens to divide the left. Vote-pairing, says Greens for Kerry founder Sarah Newman of San Francisco, could serve as a vehicle for engaging Greens, Naderites, liberal Democrats and independents in a broad progressive coalition whose influence would extend beyond the election. Newman is in touch with VotePair.org activists, who are scattered from Hawaii and California in the West to Florida and Massachusetts on the East.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »