A while ago I posted this in which I discussed third parties (in particular the American Solidarity Party) and ranked choice voting. This is a bit of an update, I suppose.
In that post I advocated for supporting the American Solidarity Party on the grounds that its platform was uniquely suited to presenting an alternate option to the Democrats and Republicans, and also said that Ranked Choice Voting (of the specific "Instant Runoff" variety) would be useful for aiding in them or other third parties becoming viable.
Since then, there have been some developments. The party did fall a bit short of what I hoped in the US presidential election, but it should be noted that it was a notable improvement over 2016. In 2016, the candidate (Michael Maturen) received 6,777 votes (putting him in 14th place) whereas the 2020 candidate (Brian Carroll) received 40,230 votes, almost 6 times as much, and bringing him to 10th place. I expect it would've done even better if not for COVID coming along and making it very hard for a newer party to gather up the necessary signatures to get onto the ballot in some states.
The amount of donations was up quite a bit, too. Now, one has to be careful when comparing donation amounts. You can't compare a presidential year to a non-presidential year, for example, and the time periods have to be the same. The FEC does list the amount they received in the back half of 2016 (when they first started reporting it), but to make a proper comparison I had to wait until the back half of 2020. I am not sure if you can get that information off the FEC's websie now given that it lists 2019-2020, but I did see how much was given between 2019 and mid-2020, so I could subtract the amount given totally in 2019 and 2020 to find out how much was given in the back half of 2020, which was more than four times as much as was made in back in 2016.
The total numbers are still not that impressive, even compared to the Libertarian and Green Parties (the total amount in 2019-2020 was nearly that of the Constitution Party, though). But it still shows growth. This is good for it. Not as good as a supporter may hope, but still good.
The other point to bring up is Ranked Choice Voting. This was on the ballot as a referendum in two states: Massachusetts and Alaska. It failed in Massachusetts but succeeded in Alaska, which is a bit surprising to me; I would've actually predicted the opposite. The Alaska one was more broad, though. It abolishes party primaries entirely and allows for a primary where as many people from any party can run as they want. People vote in that primary, and the top 4 people advance to the general election, which is decided by RCV. I am not sure what I think of this, but I can say it's an improvement over the current system, and unlike California which has open primaries and has the top two advance to the main election, isn't likely to result in what California does which is to have two Republicans or two Democrats go up against each other in the election.
We've also seen an increase in Approval Voting, with St. Louis adopting it (though not the state). In Approval Voting, you vote for as many people as you want, and the one with the most votes wins. This is better than our current plurality voting system (everyone votes for one person and whoever gets the most votes wins), though I have my doubts that it's superior to RCV. But any improvement is nevertheless an improvement.
So what is the conclusion of all this? Well, it seems things are moving in a good direction, although very slowly. Another state has picked up RCV. Approval Voting is gaining ground. And the American Solidarity Party is gaining popularity. All of these are going slowly, but they are going. Hopefully we'll see these pick up steam and increase exponentially.
What can you do to help? Well, as I've noted, if you want to help a third party succeed, you should do more than just vote for it come election time. Donate money, even a small amount. If you have problems with the American Solidarity Party, try another one. Do the same for the issue of Ranked Choice Voting, Approval Voting, or whatever alternative voting system to our very flawed one is; see if there's a movement in your state to try to get it approved. Donations are an easy enough way to help and actually do help.
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