Vote Pairing - Mechanics

Mechanics

The concern often gets raised on whether vote pairing can be used by opposing parties to manipulate an election or sabotage a candidate. However, in practice, such ideas of manipulation turn out to be impractical and self defeating.

For an example, suppose that in the 2004 election the former Republican Pat Buchanan had again run for President under the Reform Party (as he did in the 2000 election). Suppose that supporters of the 2004 Republican candidate, George W. Bush, had set up vote pairing web sites so that Buchanan supporters from swing states in the US (such as Ohio, where the Democrats and Republicans were in a close race) would get matched with Bush supporters in solidly Democrat states (such as Massachusetts). This was not actually done of course (since Buchanan did not run in 2004), but suppose that Republican supporters of George W. Bush had gotten concerned that Democratic supporters of John Kerry would try to sabotage these web sites or manipulate the election by posing as either Bush or Buchanan supporters. However, if such Democrats had done so, all they could do is pose as George W. Bush supporters in solidly Democratic states or as Buchanan supporters in swing states. In the former situation (Democrats posing as Bush supporters in solidly Democrat states such as Massachusetts), all they could do is trick Buchanan supporters in swing states to cast their vote for Bush—which would only hurt the Democratic candidate, John Kerry. Similarly, in the latter situation (Democrats posing as |Buchanan supporters in swing states), all they could do is trick Bush supporters in solidly Democrat states to vote for Buchanan—which wouldn't change the election since the Democrat candidate, John Kerry, would very likely carry those states anyway.

One can work through this same issue in the opposite political direction—where it actually was a concern of Democrats in the 2004 election. In the 2004 presidential election, votepair.org matched Democratic Party supporters of John Kerry in staunchly Republican states with third-party supporters in swing states (including Ralph Nader supporters, Libertarian Party supporters of Michael Badnarik, or Green Party supporters of David Cobb). A common question was whether Republican supporters of George W. Bush could manipulate the election by posing as John Kerry supporters or as third-party supporters. However, if such people had posed as third-party supporters in swing states, all they could do is trick John Kerry supporters in staunchly Republican states to vote for a third-party candidate—which wouldn't change the outcome of the election (since George W. Bush would win those states anyway). Similarly if such people had posed as John Kerry supporters in staunchly Republican states, all they could do is trick third-party supporters in swing states to vote for John Kerry--which would have politically hurt George W. Bush, not helped him.

One can similarly think through the possibilities of say a left third-party supporter in a swing state trying to trick Democrats in red states into voting for third parties. In an extreme case, say a Ralph Nader supporter in Florida in 2004 had used different email addresses and names to register 10 different times with votepair.org and then tried to manipulate 10 different Democrats in Texas to all vote for Nader, while casting his own ballot in Florida not for John Kerry but for Nader as well. This is perhaps the point where the process is the most vulnerable to mistrust. However, the outcome in Texas would still have gone unchanged—all of the Texas electoral votes would have still gone to Bush. The outcome in Florida would have been more vulnerable. Arguably though, the Nader "supporter" in Florida would have done more to hurt third parties than help them. If he told anyone he had done this, he might have started a rumor that third-party supporters can't be trusted, driving Democrats in red states away from votepair.org and lowering the total votes third parties might get. Consequently the best strategy for a third-party supporter to do in a swing state is to just enter into a vote pair honestly. They can then tell others about how they had done so in order to spread understanding of vote pairing. A similar reasoning would apply to Democrats in nonswing states not following through on a vote pair agreement, or to Republicans and supporters of politically right third parties not following through on vote pairs.

Ultimately the only real way to manipulate vote pairing, and its effect on an election outcome, is to prevent people from learning about it, not to pose as a different kind of voter. Arguably, this kind of manipulation—preventing people from learning about vote pairing—is what happened in the 2000 presidential election, as discussed below.