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Topic: New Report: Voting Records and Voting Patterns (Read 9633 times)
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Voting Records and Voting Patterns By Keith Carlsen http://members.aol.com/wyomingsuccess/voting.html(the website has hyperlinks to all of the sources)The purpose of this report is to find out which FSP candidate state is the most limited government friendly. Tennyson wrote a very good report about the freedom orientation of the candidate states. I liked his report but it only looked at one factor, the voting results on the 2000 presidential election. I wrote the Wyoming Report 2 and included information about citizen ideology that Jason Sorens posted ( http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=1213 ) to the Free State Project Forum. I found Jason’s information very useful and that is why I included it in my report on Wyoming. However, I heard several complaints that these two ideological factors rank the states inconsistently. Particularly, New Hampshire and North Dakota are ranked in dramatically different positions, according to the two factors. Tennyson’s report found North Dakota to be the third highest ranked state and New Hampshire to be the fourth lowest ranked state. Jason’s citizen ideology factor found New Hampshire to be the fourth highest ranked state and North Dakota to be the third lowest ranked state. After these discrepancies in the state rankings were pointed out to me, I scratched my head. I decided to find other criteria to use to compare the ideology of the states. Before I started collecting data, I decided that all of the new factors had to be reliable and useful. This report looks at several different factors, in an attempt to see which state believes more in limited government and end this debate for good. Part 1: Citizen Voting Records 1. Average percentage vote for small government candidates in 1964 and 1980 Basically, this section answers one very important question; will a state’s electorate vote for a radical limited government candidate if represents one of the major parties. The section averages two different sets of data. The first set of data is the vote for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 election. Barry Goldwater ran on a platform that centered on radically reduce the size and power of the Federal government. The United States as a whole rejected him but he almost got 50% of the vote in a couple of states and even won a few Southern states. His election, more than any other recent election, was to answer the question, do Americans want a smaller Federal government. The overwhelming answer was, no, Americans do not want a much smaller and constitutionally limited Federal government. In 1980 Americans had the same question put before them. Do Americans want a smaller or larger Federal government? On one side of the question were Ed Clark LP and Ronald Reagan GOP and on the other side were a Democrat and an Independent. Ronald Reagan promised to lower taxes and reduce government. He even went so far as to say that government is not the solution, it is the problem. However, when he got elected he did not exactly reduce the size or power of the Federal government, but that is another story. He clearly ran on a government reduction platform as did Ed Clark. For example, Ronald Reagan and Ed Clark had the same main issue, radical and massive tax reductions (and Reagan did pass these). At the same time, his big government opponents, Jimmy Carter a Democrat and John Anderson an Independent, ran on government expansion. One of Jimmy Carter’s main issues was a national healthcare program similar to the program that Hilary Clinton proposed in the 1990s. Average of Reagan and Goldwater elections: Rank State Percentage U.S. Average for both 45.14% 1. Idaho 58.7% 2. Wyoming 54.3% 3. North Dakota 53.6% 4. South Dakota 53.1% 5. Alaska 50.1% 5. Montana 50.1% 7. New Hampshire 47.2% 8. Delaware 43.4% 9. Vermont 39.5% 10. Maine 38.9% |
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« Last Edit: August 21, 2003, 11:57:06 am by FreedomRoad »
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2. Percentage vote for all small government candidates in 2000 Tennyson wrote a whole report about why this is important so I will not cover this. For a full explanation of Tennyson’s reasoning see his report. Here is Tennyson’s actual research: State Voter Turnout "Big G" Candidates "Small G" Candidates Predisposition by Percentage VT 63.7% 169,042 votes 122,685 votes 37% Big G ME 67.4% 357,708 votes 294,710 votes 21% Big G DE 56.3% 188,463 votes 139,044 votes 35% Big G NH 62.3% 288,504 votes 279,211 votes 3% Big G MT 61.5% 162,292 votes 248,791 votes 53% Small G SD 58.2% 118,804 votes 197,458 votes 66% Small G AK 64.4% 102,530 votes 174,596 votes 70% Small G ND 60.4% 105,510 votes 183,211 votes 73% Small G ID 53.7% 144,869 votes 349,601 votes 141% Small G WY 59.7% 60,908 votes 152,851 votes 151% Small G Here are Tennyson’s rankings: 1. Wyoming 151% (the highest score in the country) 2. Idaho 141% 3. North Dakota 73% 4. Alaska 70% 5. South Dakota 66% 6. Montana 53% 7. New Hampshire -3% 8. Delaware -35% 9. Maine -21% 10. Vermont -37% 3. Citizen Ideology I think citizen ideology as ranked is very important. This factor tries to tell us what the citizens, themselves, think on the issues. The survey that produced this factor was originally intended to show how conservative a state’s citizens are. However, the majority of the question really rate how libertarian a state’s citizens are. Some questions have been raised that the information gathered from this survey is too conservative oriented. I understand the concern but after looking at the questions, I think the information is more libertarian than conservative. Anyway, only one state, Idaho, would be hurt, if the information is too conservative. For more information on this factor, see Jason’s post ( http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=1213 ) on the FSP Forum. The Ranking after Jason averaged the scores from 1992 to 1999 1. Idaho 26.3 2. Alaska 33.1 3. Wyoming 33.9 4. New Hampshire 36.3 5. Montana 43.1 6. South Dakota 46.8 7. Delaware 52.1 8. North Dakota 54.7 9. Maine 64.5 10. Vermont 74.2 |
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« Last Edit: August 21, 2003, 11:58:31 am by FreedomRoad »
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4. Average Percentage Vote for Libertarian Harry Browne in 1996 and 2000
Percentage vote for Libertarian Harry Browne in 2000
Many people have never heard of Harry Browne or the Libertarian Party. You and I might think this is sad, but it is true. Many people that have heard of Libertarians think that Libertarians are radial, nutty, crazy, druggies, or rich snobs that care nothing for the poor. Also, many pro-freedom people did not vote, or voted for other candidates.
Source
Ranking:
1. Alaska .92 (the highest score in the country)
2. Idaho .70
3. Wyoming .66
4. South Dakota .52
5. New Hampshire .48
6. Maine .47
7. Montana .24
8. Vermont .27
9. Delaware .24
10. North Dakota .23
Percentage vote for Libertarian Harry Browne in 1996
See what I wrote for the above section, ‘B. Percentage vote for Libertarian Harry Browne in 2000.’
Source
Ranking:
1. Alaska .94 (the highest score in the country)
2. New Hampshire .85
3. Wyoming .82
4. Delaware .76
5. Idaho .68
6. Montana .62
7. Maine .49
8. Vermont .46
9. South Dakota .45
10. North Dakota .32
Average 1996 and 2000 Percentage vote for Harry Browne
1. Alaska .93
2. Wyoming .74
3. Idaho .69
4. New Hampshire .66
5. Delaware .50
6. Maine .48
6. South Dakota .48
8. Montana .43
9. Vermont .36
10. North Dakota .27
5. Average vote for LP candidates in 2002 for major offices
Includes US Senate, US House, and Governor races
Ranking:
1. Montana 3.0%
2. Wyoming 2.5%
2. New Hampshire 2.5%
4. Idaho 2.25%
5. Alaska 1.5%
6. Vermont 1.0%
6. South Dakota 1.0%
8. Delaware 0.5%
9. Maine No LP Candidates
10. North Dakota No LP Candidates
Source
6. Percentage of total vote in 2002 according to the Libertarian Party website: All elections averaged
1. Maine 8.47%
2. Wyoming 7.62
3. Idaho 5.64%
4. Montana 3.28%
5. New Hampshire 2.68%
6. South Dakota 1.77%
7. Alaska 1.31%
8. Vermont 1.27%
9. Delaware 0.91%
The website does not have the results for North Dakota
Source
7. November 2002 Election Results:
Total Libertarian Votes by State
1. Idaho 197,900
2. Wyoming 43,944
3. South Dakota 41,314
4. New Hampshire 39,762
5. Vermont 29,927
6. Montana 22,560
7. Alaska 11,356
8. Delaware 4,642
9. Maine 1,440
ND N/A
Source
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« Last Edit: August 20, 2003, 03:09:23 pm by FreedomRoad »
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Part 2: Voting patterns of the U.S. Congress members
1. Republican Liberty Caucus ranking for U.S. Congress for 10 years
As a LP member and former conservative, I have to say that I love the RLC. Admittedly, I have not joined or given any money to the RLC. The only way I would, is if a RLC chapter was started in the FSP’s chosen state. I enjoy Congressman Ron Paul a great deal. I love his voting record, his failed LP presidential campaign, and his articles on LewRockwell.com. I am very glad that he made the RLC a useful tool for connecting all freedom loving people. I know that most of the members of the RLC are not as libertarian as he is so the RLC rankings cannot be counted on as gospel. However, the RLC rankings are the most useful tool we have to see what kinds of representatives are elected by the candidate states.
Source
A. RLC’s personal freedom ranking of U.S. Congress members over the last 10 years
Rankings:
1. Wyoming 67.4
2. Idaho 65.6
3. Alaska 64.0
4. New Hampshire 61.7
5. Montana 57.0
6. South Dakota 47.8
7. Maine 47.5
8. Vermont 42.0
9. Delaware 39.3
10. North Dakota 36.3
B. RLC’s economic freedom ranking of U.S. Congress members over the last 10 years
Rankings:
1. Wyoming 79.2
2. New Hampshire 74.7
3. Idaho 72.3
4. Alaska 67.0
5. Montana 52.4
6. Delaware 51.5
7. South Dakota 50.0
8 Maine 45.4
9 Vermont 32.7
10 North Dakota 27.0
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2. Citizens Against Government Waste lifetime rankings for current U.S. Congressional members
CAGW, a mainstream group, is the leading libertarian group for finding government waste. This group is not as libertarian as the RLC but it is a very good group that covers a pet-peeve of many libertarians, government waste.
Sources: 1, 2
The Rankings:
1. New Hampshire 86 (the highest score in the country)
2. Wyoming 78
3. Idaho 76
4. Alaska 57
5. Montana 54
6. Delaware/Maine 36
8. South Dakota 31
9. Vermont 27
10. North Dakota 22
3. National Taxpayers Union
The NTU is the largest taxpayer’s rights or anti-tax organization in America. The organization is similar to other mainstream libertarian organizations, such as the Cato Institute and CAGW, in that it tries to explain things to its mostly conservative audience from a libertarian perspective. Taxation is one of the biggest issues for most libertarians and so I thought this ranking deserved 10% of the final score. The ranking is the average score that each state’s Congressional members earned from 1995 to 2002 or over the last eight years. The ranking is the percent of the time that a state’s Congressional members voted the way the NTU wanted them to.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Ranking average from 1995 to 2002
1. Wyoming 74%
2. New Hampshire 72%
3. Idaho 70%
4. Alaska 65%
5. Montana 50%
6. Delaware 47%
7. Maine 40%
8. South Dakota 36%
9. Vermont 25%
10. North Dakota 18%
4. Gun Owner’s of America rankings for combined 106th, 107th, and 108th U.S. Congress members
Most Americans have heard of the National Rifle Association. Well, GOA is the 300,000 member libertarian counterpart to the conservative NRA. I am a lifetime member of both organizations but I occasionally regret that I joined the NRA. I have never regretted joining GOA, though. Gun freedom, along with taxes, regulation, and drugs, is one of the four major libertarian issues. Wyoming might elect the most pro-gun representatives because it has the highest rate of gun ownership and the highest rate of NRA membership in the country.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Rankings:
1. Wyoming A- (the highest score in the country)
2. Idaho B+
3. New Hampshire B-
4. Montana C+
5. Alaska C-
6. South Dakota D
7. Maine D-
8. North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont F
WHAT THE REPORT MEANS:
It is important to note that, according to this report, Wyoming seems to be the most small government friendly candidate state. Wyoming also has the smallest population. Idaho looks to be second best. However, with Idaho projected to have over 2,500,000 people in twenty years, it is questionable whether the FSP members will be able to have any impact that goes above and beyond the freedom already available in Idaho. These states are followed by New Hampshire and Alaska. Remember, all of the factors in this report are entirely objective.
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« Last Edit: August 20, 2003, 10:47:10 pm by FreedomRoad »
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LeRuineur6
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Ouch. It doesn't look too good for South Dakota on many of those measurements...  Nice report.  |
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Please donate $5 to $10 per month to the Liberty Scholarship Fund!"Noncooperation is intended to pave the way to real, honorable, and voluntary cooperation based on mutual respect and trust." -Gandhi
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LeRuineur6
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FreedomRoad, I'm just curious... Has this report changed your vote in any way? It seems like New Hampshire is equal to or greater than Alaska on some very important measurements, and it is definitely greater than South Dakota on many important measurements as well. Does this make you want to reconsider placing NH slightly higher in your vote at all? Just wondering. This report is highly critical of some specific states which many thought were doing rather well, but which evidently are not. It definitely strengthens the case for putting WY and NH in the top two spots, in my opinion. In trying to change others, one often changes oneself.  |
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Please donate $5 to $10 per month to the Liberty Scholarship Fund!"Noncooperation is intended to pave the way to real, honorable, and voluntary cooperation based on mutual respect and trust." -Gandhi
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johnadams
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...It definitely strengthens the case for putting WY and NH in the top two spots, in my opinion. ... This is what I have been saying all along, that NH and WY are the obvious top two states, and people jumped on me and said that it is not obvious at all (especially a certain ME supporter who shall remain nameless ). The statistics and the arguments I've seen have so far validated what I said. One can quibble with my favoring NH above WY, due in part to some factors that are not considered in the stats, but I stand by my recommendation of these as the top two states and I still think they are the obvious choices. ID also does well on liberty stats and economics and DE on economics, but all the other states after WY and NH have some significant drawbacks that make the top two states a cut above the others. |
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Kelton
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6. Percentage of total vote in 2002 accoding to the Libertarian Party website: All elections averaged
1. Maine 8.47%
2. Wyoming 7.62
3. Idaho 5.64%
4. Montana 3.28%
5. New Hampshire 2.68%
6. South Dakota 1.77%
7. Alaska 1.31%
8. Vermont 1.27%
9. Delaware 0.91%
The website does not have the results for North Dakota
Source
As to North Dakota, I read where North Dakota simply had no candidates for LP in the last election, so it had no votes. Also, this percentage is not very useful as a ranking because it only measures the average percentage of vote totals in the local races. So, Maine looks good for getting 8% in one single race. Contrast this with the vote totals by actual number to get a better handle on what these figures represent: November 2002 Election Results, : Total Libertarian Votes by State197,900 Idaho 43,944 Wyoming 41,314 South Dakota 39,762 New Hampshire 29,927 Vermont 22,560 Montana 11,356 Alaska 4,642 Delaware 1,440 Maine |
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. . .the foundations of our national policy should be laid in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue --The U.S. Senate's reply to George Washington's first inaugural address
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johnadams
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Good work Keith and Kelton! Very interesting.
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1DayAtATime
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FreedomRoad, I'm just curious... Has this report changed your vote in any way? It seems like New Hampshire is equal to or greater than Alaska on some very important measurements, and it is definitely greater than South Dakota on many important measurements as well. Does this make you want to reconsider placing NH slightly higher in your vote at all? Just wondering. This report is highly critical of some specific states which many thought were doing rather well, but which evidently are not. It definitely strengthens the case for putting WY and NH in the top two spots, in my opinion. In trying to change others, one often changes oneself. I welcome your questions. From what I can tell of the factors used in the report, WY stands out above the other states, followed by Idaho. SO, at least in theory, this report might make some people favor ID more than they otherwise would. I understand that but ID only has 1 of what I think are the two most important factors. My two most important factors: 1. A small and hopefully slow growing population States that I like for this factor- WY, VT, ND, SD, AK 2. A small government/ independent/ individualist culture State that I like for this factor- WY, MT, SD, ID, NH, AK States that make both lists: WY, SD, AK So, no, I am not downgrading SD. SD has so many great things going for it, IMHO. I really do not care to express all of them because there has been little interest in SD so I don't think it will be one of the top states and nothing I say at this point can change that. I do agree, though, in many of the factors, New Hampshire does great and I like the culture of New Hampshire. I also like that I have family near there, but that is not strong enough to make me ignore the other factors. |
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Kelton
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Making blanket statements about the "libertarianness" of a population based on an election which happened almost 40 years ago seems rather silly to me, but the mention of Barry Goldwater is interesting. Yes, you are probably right, though it does set a precedent, much like the war of 1812 somehow lifts the esteem of Maine and Revolutionary events in New Hampshire give something for current residents and would-be in-migrants to ponder. The precedent of a conservative state seems to affect future outcomes to some degree. For example, California conservatives are still reminding everyone which state gave the nation Ronald Reagan. And though most libertarians can find at least 1 or 2 serious problems with Ronald Reagan's policies, I think most will agree that people who voted for Carter or Mondale instead of Reagan really liked big government, or at least hated charming personalities.  Barry Goldwater was viewed by many people as a racist because of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I would guess that many of the tolerant people of New Hampshire had trouble with voting for him for this reason.
One of the problems with trying to determine voter intent. Were they single-issue voters? Did they vote for a candidate simply because of good looks and polished speech? Or did they vote because they actually agree with the issues of the platform? On a different note, many people were opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not because they were against racial equality, but because they were for it. Sadly, most people who opposed it then are now labeled as bigots and racists even if they did so on principle of states rights or libertarian philosophy. |
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. . .the foundations of our national policy should be laid in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue --The U.S. Senate's reply to George Washington's first inaugural address
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Kelton
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3. Citizen Ideology
I think citizen ideology as ranked is very important. This factor tries to tell us what the citizens, themselves, think on the issues. The survey that produced this factor was originally intended to show how conservative a state’s citizens are. However, the majority of the question really rate how libertarian a state’s citizens are. Some questions have been raised that the information gathered from this survey is too conservative oriented. I understand the concern but after looking at the questions, I think the information is more libertarian than conservative. Anyway, only one state, Idaho, would be hurt, if the information is too conservative. For more information on this factor, see Jason’s post on the FSP Forum.
The Ranking after Jason averaged the scores from 1992 to 1999
1. Idaho 26.3
2. Alaska 33.1
3. Wyoming 33.9
4. New Hampshire 36.3
5. Montana 43.1
6. South Dakota 46.8
7. Delaware 52.1
8. North Dakota 54.7
9. Maine 64.5
10. Vermont 74.2
You seem to give the impression that this was some kind of poll. There were no questions per se asked of voters, instead this was a composite measurement of actual vote percentages for and against candidates and issues based on the grading positions of ADA and AFL-CIO scorecards. 20 different criteria were posed but at least 18 of those matched perfectly with libertarian ideology according to Jason Sorens. I casually glanced at a extensive summary of the article on a computer search at a local university and I found nothing I disagreed with. The article was not just some rah-rah hoopla from some advocacy group, this was actually done as an academic work by a group of highly respected scholars using the latest state-of the art methods in political science. Granted, it examined issues where conservatives and libertarians might mesh, it was not a measurement of victimless crime laws and such. But since it coincided with libertarian principles on what it did at least 90% of the time, it is safe to assume that the rankings are also quite accurate. Our own political science professor, Dr. Jason Sorens recommended this be given a high weighting in the spreadsheet. By an entirely different method than any used elsewhere with all of our other measurements. this confirms once again that Alaska, Idaho, New Hampshire and Wyoming are fore-runners in these economic/ private property areas of abstaining from big government. |
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. . .the foundations of our national policy should be laid in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue --The U.S. Senate's reply to George Washington's first inaugural address
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Just_visiting
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4. Average Percentage Vote for Libertarian Harry Browne in 1996 and 2000
(snip....)
Not sure exactly what you mean by "average". In all cases except Wyoming, the average really was the arithmetic mean. But the "average" you gave for Wyoming was a couple of points too high. Not enough to change the rankings, but hey. Regards, Just visitin' |
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Leonard
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I don't think the part 1 data are that trustworthy. But the part 2 data are good. The reasons why somebody votes tend to be unclear; all we know is the vote. If there is a candidate that is uniformly worse on all issues than another candidate, then votes for the first definitely indicate bad voters. But if a candidate is generally bad but good on one issue, then we should expect to see single-issue voters who care about that issue vote for him, regardless of his general unworthiness. Thus, while to any libertarian Goldwater was the objectively better candidate on almost all issues, to people who worried about nuclear war, he might have seemed worse. The federal government was a lot smaller then. And the Cold War was a lot bigger in people's minds. Or take the 1980 election. I contest the idea that a vote for Anderson was a "big government" vote. Anderson was a liberal republican. Not ideal by our standards, no. Not as good as Reagan - that's a hard call. On the one hand Anderson was generally wrong on taxation, and too willing to try to solve problems using the Federal government. On the other hand, Anderson was prochoice, and opposed some of the big weapons programs of the time. Anderson opposed tax cuts based on fiscal conservatism: he believed that cutting taxes without cutting spending would balloon the deficit (and he was right). I don't see voting for Anderson as a display of big-governmentism. It is nowhere near as good as voting for Clark, and probably slightly worse than voting for Reagan. But I certainly don't think it should go in the negative column. Or let's look at voting from another angle: practicality vs expressiveness. Personally, I don't vote for candidates unless I think they would actually increase liberty. So I only vote for libertarians. But I can certainly see the practical argument for "not throwing away your vote", voting for a demopublican. Thus I don't see the voting levels for minor candidates as very useful in determining ideology - it would seem that the closer the R/D race is in a state, the more people would forsake voting expressively (libertarian) and vote for the lesser evil. This applies, for instance, in the 2000 election. Idahoans knew who would win their state. There was no question it was Bush. So the libertarians there could feel free to vote L to express their desire for liberty without fear of wasting their vote. By contrast, in 2000 Maine went for Gore; to vote for Browne there was arguably a bad idea. |
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