From: rab@well.sf.ca.us (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: Previous Libertarian showings (was Re: New poll results)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:19:21 GMT

In article <1568@cogsci.ucsd.EDU>,
 king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King) writes:

>>In fact, since 1976, the Libertarian vote has always been the highest 
>>of any other party besides the Demoblican/Replicrat party.
>
>One pretty big nit: in 1980, John Anderson received 5,719,437 votes,
>which is about 7%, and which was *definitely* greater than Ed Clark's
>[1%] share.

I was given to understand that Anderson's efforts were done as an
independent and not as an official political party.  In any case,
clearly there is no surviving organization of any note.  Hence the
(valid) claim that the Libertarians had the most votes of any third
PARTY.   (See below.)

>
>>In 1988, the Libertarian candidate got more votes than ALL OTHER 3rd 
>>PARTIES PUT TOGETHER!  This was also true in 1980.  (I'm not sure about 
>>1984.)
>
>Again, I think this statement is *bizarre* if made in reference to
>1980 when the Libertarians finished fourth.

Not in the least bizarre if candidates without a Party are not counted
in the total.  Whether this would mislead anybody over the age of 18
is another question entirely........  I don't think so; the point of
the Libertarian Party is to be a continuing thing, to not revolve
around one candidate or issue, to not dry up and blow away after the
ballots are counted.  To not be a "flash in the pan".

>                                             And, actually, whether
>this was true in 1988 depends on how you define "3rd parties".  The
>broadest definition would include all votes *not* cast for Bush or
>Dukakis, in which case we find that the Libertarians didn't quite make
>it, winning 432,116 votes out of the total 899,522 votes cast for the
>following:

[names ommitted -- rab]

>And to be more than fair, if you limit consideration to candidates
>appearing on the ballot and toss out the Nevada Option (for whatever
>reason), then the Libertarians *still* don't outpoll the others.  Now,
>admittedly, John G. Martin only captured 236 votes for the the Third
>World Assembly, but you'd have to ignore his and at least 3 other
>people's votes to make the claim true.  What's up?

The original numbers published widely (NYTimes: Paul-409,412, all
non-Dem and non-Rep votes-822,240, NOTA-6,923 for example) had us
solidly ahead of all others combined; the later "official" numbers
included quite a few more votes and naturally the smaller totals
gained the most since they were poorly reported at first.


BTW, I'm sure that 50 or 60 people will correct you about the
Electoral College votes point (you said that Wallace was the last
third party to receive any), so I'll just add my voice to the chorus
and remind you and everybody that the 1972 Libertarian ticket got one
electoral vote -- and of course this was the first time in American
history that a woman candidate for either Pres or VP received such a
vote (the woman was Tonie Nathan, our VP candidate that year).

--
  Robert Bickford        /-------------------------------------\
  rab@well.sf.ca.us      | Don't Blame Me: I Voted Libertarian |
                         \-------------------------------------/
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections