20K "wasted votes" for Sodrel or Hill

As you might imagine, I get tired of hearing about how votes for me are "wasted"-- since I was unlikely to win. (The flip side is that we had to earn nearly all of our votes-- where the other two candidates got votes through straight-ticket voting or because they were perceived as "the lesser of two evils".) We tried to deal with that argument directly-- in many ways, but for example, by noting that it was a "waste" to vote for two candidates who have already served and one finds unsatisfying.

Of course, many people were quite satisfied with Hill or Sodrel-- and if so, I'm happy for them! The question only becomes interesting when the candidate who is perceived as best is unlikely to win, reducing the campaign (and potentially one's vote) to the best of the remaining two alternatives.

Even so, if the race is not close, then such votes are "wasted" on the second-best candidate.

For example, this time, using round numbers, Hill won 180K votes, Sodrel won 120K, and I won 12K. That works out to 58% for Hill, 38% for Sodrel and 4% for me.

If 20K of Sodrel's voters had chosen me instead, Sodrel would have been beaten by 26%. If 20K of Hill's voters had chosen me instead, Hill would have still won easily-- by 14%.

In each of those cases, I would have gotten to double digits-- and probably stirred some national discussion about third parties, dissatisfaction with the status quo, etc. Instead, our 4% was only a minor blip on the radar.

If you voted for Hill or Sodrel-- and you saw them as second-best-- then your vote was wasted. If you had voted for me, you could have been part of something much bigger: the opportunity to send a signal to Washington-- that the status quo is not good enough.