Letter to the Editor: Ask not for whom the poll gels

Bells toll at Princeton. And polls gel in election years — unless they don't!

This has been an election year like none I can remember. What demoralizing chaos it must seem to those who have known few elections. Sweet Meteor O'Death leads for a reason.

No shocker, then, that voters this year are unusually open to third-party and independent candidates. Searches for "write in" have skyrocketed nationally compared to 2012 — with New Jersey among the leading states for the surge.

No searches for me, though. I decided two months ago that I'll be writing someone in.

I'm now aware in new ways of our party duopoly and the hidden barriers to voter choice. Sure, you can vote for someone other than the Big Two. But how much do you know about who else is running? What makes it hard to find out? How do you actually vote for someone else? How can you be sure your vote will be counted? And who's supposed to explain all this to you?

The hidden barriers to voter choice

Most likely your parents, if you are younger — and you, if you have voted before — have always chosen between the candidates put forth by the two major parties.

Why do we keep on reinforcing the party binary?

There are obvious reasons, like always having found one of the two minimally acceptable. But there are other reasons — hidden reasons. And these hidden reasons become a sobering factor in a year when many do not find either of the major-party candidates acceptable.

We actually do have choices — but hidden barriers work against our access to them.

What are those barriers?

The nature of the media

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Major media outlets are paid for by ads. No viewers? No advertisers. No advertisers? No anchor jobs. Networks have a mission: catch and keep the viewer. And what do viewers like? Entertainment. No one would make money showing the Lincoln-Douglas debates today. The medium shapes the message. Commercial television indulges our taste for sound-bites, pugilism, snark. There is little money to be made in making us think. If we don't see this, question this, and get outside it, then the nature of the media — and the medium — cuts off our access to real choice.

The majority of the largest media players also tilt towards one party. So long as they acknowledge they are partisan, rather than objective, that's their liberty. But any claims to be objective, blended with an actual slant toward the partisan, distort your information and your choice.

Take a candidate who is entertaining, and who would lose to the favored candidate, and give him free media, and what do you get? As Les Moonves said, "it may not be good for America, but it's been d*** good for CBS."

Access to the debate stage

Who decides who participates? Do you know what the Presidential Debate Commission is? A private organization controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties!

Where there is sufficient demand, media outlets may offer a minor-party debate, but not all minor-party candidates may choose to participate. Gary Johnson, for instance, has declined to debate Evan McMullin.

Federal and party dollars and support

Candidates other than the two major-party candidates lack access to an array of benefits both financial and logistical. It's hard to get the word out without money and data, which the parties offer — but to party candidates only.

Punitive ballot access requirements

In some states, modest ballot access requirements make it relatively easy for an outsider to get on the ballot. In other states, very early deadlines or huge signature requirements make it virtually impossible to make the ballot. Thus, it's very difficult for an independent presidential candidate to make the ballot in all fifty states.

A patchwork of write-in laws

Did you know that the procedure to write in a candidate varies from state to state? Did you know that, in some states, the rules even vary by county? One state specifies last name only; another asks for first name and last; another wants title, first name, last name. Some states want just the presidential candidate's name; others ask for the vice presidential candidate's name as well. One state may be a stickler about spelling, while another is more relaxed about voter intent. Then there are paper ballot peculiarities —don't forget to fill in the little square or circle along with supplying names, you know! — and another set of issues for electronic machines. Call your county, call more than once, and study your sample ballot well, or your vote may not count.

The burden on any independent campaign to research these requirements is large, and the task of communicating the diverse requirements to all interested voters is immense.

If you support a write-in candidate, do you know what to tell an interested friend in another state? Even the vast potential of social media to fuel a non-traditional campaign is hampered by the patchwork of write-in rules.

Party pressure on defectors

Finally, take a year like this one, in which many see the Republican Party as having been hijacked by Donald Trump, who hardly fit people's idea of a Republican before this year. Suppose an elected Republican official thinks, "I would really rather my constituents vote for independent candidate So-and-So, whom I can heartily recommend." Did you know that official faces tremendous pressure from party leaders not to say that? That he or she faces serious consequences, including the loss of future political support from the party? How likely are you to hear about a qualified independent candidate under those circumstances?

Inclusion in polls

Polls reflect and drive both fame and prospects. But if you're an independent presidential candidate, how do you get a good poll result without being in the poll? And why should pollsters put you in the poll unless people have heard of you? Yet one way people hear of you is you're in the polls. Who decides who is included in polls? Do you, as a citizen, have any way to influence that at all?

The rise in early voting

Early voting begins much earlier than it once did and has been extended more and more widely. While some early voting is a necessary accommodation, the vast increase in early voting is another barrier to voter choice. By the time some voters hear of an independent candidate, they have already voted for someone else, and this cannot be reversed.

Outsider viability, or, for whom the polls gel

No wonder it's been over a hundred years since a third-party presidential candidate won an election.

But will this year be like all the others?

Well, Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, a poll analysis and predictions site, is not quite sure. He very recently added independent candidate Evan McMullin to his Utah and national forecasts, and has been intently puzzling over how to forecast his chances. An article on McMullin is one of the most-viewed pieces at his site this year.

Why? Well, this is an odd year, and McMullin is an unusual case.

Sure, he has an intriguing bio: undercover CIA agent who removed terrorists from the battlefield; Chief Policy Director, House Republican Conference; squeaky-clean Mormon guy in a brawling, dirty year; cool bald dude who's only forty. Not your stereotypical write-in candidate. His female Jewish running mate, Mindy Finn, is a rebuke to the alt-right. (See endnote for important requirement related to McMullin's VP.) He's got an energized, eclectic grassroots base captivated by the chance to rescue the country from unacceptable choices.

In any normal year, he wouldn't be on the map. He entered the race ten weeks ago with zero public name recognition. And yet, in those ten weeks, he's made it onto the map. On the ballot in around a dozen states, votable in forty-plus, and in the lead in Utah in ten weeks, having leapt over first Stein, then Johnson, and now Trump and Clinton. How to calculate that trajectory? Is it Utah-only? Is it Mountain State specific? The polls have awakened national media coverage. How fast will word spread? Nate Silver is considered one of the best predictors of electoral outcomes, and even he doesn't know.

And what happens if McMullin wins a handful of states? Via a Twelfth Amendment path not used in 125 years, he could actually win the election.

But did you know about him? Do you know who else you can vote for in New Jersey? Do you know how? Have you heard him, or the other third party candidates, debate? Does he seem "less real" as a choice because he wasn't in the major-party debates? That's the party binary at work.

So there are barriers. What to do?

Break loose like Truman Burbank. Find out what's out there. Choose well! Or, let the system constrain your choices to the world you've always known. "Ask not for whom the poll gels. It gels, my friend, 'round thee."

Katharine Givotovsky Birkett '85 volunteersas the New Jersey Grassroots Team Lead on theEvan McMullin for President campaign. She can be reached atnewjersey@evanmcmullin.com.

Note: Evan McMullin is a write-in candidate in the state of New Jersey. Where a vice president name is required nationwide, for technical reasons related to the compressed time frame of this year's campaign, the placeholder name, Nathan Johnson, should be entered instead of Finn. Johnson will not serve as vice president.