Article in “The Atlantic” on Crossover Voting

When Your Vote Doesn’t Matter, Try Switching Ballots

If your party is going to lose, you can at least have a say in how it loses.

By Jonathan Robinson and Sean Trende

Published in The Atlantic, May 24, 2022

Pundits and voters of all stripes lament just how extreme, polarized, and ideological American politics has become. But such grievances rarely come with advice for how ordinary people can address this problem, other than by voting for their preferred political party’s candidates in general elections. Even that advice isn’t very helpful: Voters in many parts of the country do not have the chance to participate in close electoral contests.

Yet Democrats in Alabama and Republicans in New York, say, still have the power to secure better representation in Congress and strike a blow against political polarization. In places where electoral competition is lacking, primary elections by and large decide political outcomes. Voters in those places are accustomed to participating in their own party’s primaries. But often the opposite party’s primary is more competitive and more consequential. So why not strategically vote in the other party’s primary?

[Read the full article at The Atlantic, here]