Jill Stein and “spoiler season”

Jake Pellett, Deb Otis | 

It was a week of conflicting developments in “spoiler season.” The Democratic National Committee released an ad in battleground states claiming that “a vote for [Green Party candidate Jill] Stein is a vote for Trump.” A New York Times profile of Stein cited family and friends who encouraged her to leave the race out of fear she was aiding Trump’s candidacy. Yet, a new national poll from Noble Predictive Insights offered an unexpected finding: Stein might be taking more votes from Donald Trump than Kamala Harris.

Despite this poll, the conventional wisdom remains (and most polling suggests) that Green candidates hurt Democrats more than Republicans. The parties seem to be approaching Stein’s campaign accordingly. 

In addition to the ad, Democrats have hammered Stein’s candidacy in recent weeks. Conservative operatives tried to help Stein qualify for the ballot in key states to hurt Vice President Harris (just as Democrats tried to help a Constitution Party candidate to hurt former President Trump).

One thing is clear: fear and weaponization of minor-party “spoilers” is alive and well in the last days of the 2024 presidential election – except in Maine and Alaska, which use ranked choice voting to vote for president. 

With ranked choice voting, neither side would have to worry about the election being “spoiled,” and voters could confidently cast their ballots for their favorite candidate instead of feeling pressured to pick the lesser of two evils.

The section below was originally posted on September 26, 2024.

Election Day is six weeks away, and that means it’s “spoiler season” again. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are engaged in legal battles over ballot access in several key states (even though Kennedy has suspended his campaign). Democrats and Republicans are getting in the mix, too – both major parties have weaponized third-party candidates, helping them get ballot access in some states or suing to keep them off the ballot in others. 

Ranked choice voting (RCV) would end the gamesmanship – giving voters more choices on the ballot without fear of “wasting” their vote or playing spoiler.

Last month, Kennedy suspended his campaign and won lawsuits to be removed from the ballot in battleground states – but now is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to add him to the ballot in New York. Just last week, the Supreme Court declined to place Jill Stein on the ballot in Nevada, one of the seven key battleground states. Stein was represented by Jay Sekulow, a strange move for a Trump-aligned lawyer – unless his interest was in Stein’s ability to “siphon” left-leaning voters from Kamala Harris in The Silver State. 

It’s not just the general ickiness; such legal warfare can be expensive and time-consuming. Kennedy’s late removal from the ballot in North Carolina (by a Republican-majority State Supreme Court) meant that the state had to reprint millions of ballots and delay the start of absentee voting.

These efforts are not limited to North Carolina, New York, and Nevada. Across the nation, the GOP is uplifting liberal third-party candidates like Jill Stein in hopes that they draw votes from Democrats. Democrats have used similar tactics, trying to help a Constitution Party presidential candidate earn ballot access in key swing states.

Recent polling in North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania shows that while Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are separated by less than 2%, third-party candidates in those states are collectively supported by about 3% of voters. It is clear that third-party candidates are likely to play a significant role in a presidential election that will be decided by a few thousand votes in three or four states. These third-party candidates deserve better than to be weaponized by the major parties, and voters deserve a voice in the final outcome of the race even if their top choice can’t win.

The spoiler effect is not new, and neither is the desire for other candidates. 68% of Americans wish there were more political parties, and 72% are dissatisfied with how our democracy is working. We can have the same debate — over whether votes cast for third-party or independent candidates are “taken away” from the Republican or Democratic candidates — every four years. Or we can fix the problem with a lasting solution that allows all voices to be heard. 

With RCV, voters can rank their favorite third-party or independent candidate first. If that candidate doesn’t win, the voter’s ballot would count for a backup choice – instead of accidentally helping their least favorite candidate win. We’d have a majority winner in every state, instead of 100 percent of a state’s Electoral College votes going to a candidate who wins less than 50 percent of the vote. 

Alaska and Maine already use RCV for presidential elections; voters there don’t have to choose the “lesser of two evils” or worry about wasting their vote. Oregon and Washington, DC will vote this November on implementing RCV for their presidential election as well. 

If more states reform their elections with RCV, we can escape spoiler season for good – and we won’t need to have this same conversation every four years.

Additional stories: The weaponization of third-party and independent candidates isn’t limited to the presidential election. Operatives have been accused of propping up possible “spoilers” in down-ballot elections, too. For more information, see these articles:

International elections have also been affected by weaponization of vote-splitting, as this story from Russia shows.