Can we all agree on one thing? Can we agree that the goal of every election is to find someone who is agreeable to the greatest number of citizens?
After all, we are transferring immense government power into human hands. If the people do not consent, it is no longer government of, by and for the people.
The point of elections is not to game the system. It’s not to gain power. It is not to get your guy in by hook or by crook. When we are following our better angels, we will be happier to have an opponent elected fairly than our favorite candidate elected falsely.
Our two-party system arose organically out of this principle.
By mandating that elections be held on the first Tuesday in November, federal law gave us a winner-take-all system. To be elected, a candidate does not need the majority vote.
He only needs more votes than the nearest opponent. With three or more candidates on the ballot, election to office could happen without a majority vote.
That is why, despite the loud objections of respected men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the people immediately organized themselves into political parties.
By these voluntary associations, the people themselves could cooperate before election day to put candidates on the ballot who have a better chance of receiving a majority – rather than a mere plurality.
Political parties are not the creation of the state to control the people. They are the creation of the people to control the state. And, for the first century of our Republic, they nominated candidates for office at party conventions – without any involvement or interference from the government.
Since the whole point of these voluntary organizations was to improve on the winner-take-all system, conventions took multiple votes before they found one candidate who received a clear majority.
One famous example of this is the Republican Party convention of 1860.
Only ten years after its first meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin, the nascent Republican party gathered in Chicago to select the best person to represent its anti-slavery platform on the November ballot.
On the convention’s first ballot William Seward got 37.3% of the votes, putting him 15 points ahead of his nearest rival. But, lacking a clear majority, the convention voted again.
This time Seward garnered 39.6% and the runner up, 38.9%. A third vote was taken and Abraham Lincoln surged to a clear majority of 75.2%. The rest is history.
Imagine if the pro-slavery congress had required the convention to stop after one vote and to anoint Seward as the party’s nominee? Where would we be today?
But a half-century after this momentous triumph of the two-party system, Progressive ideologues began agitating to upend it. The same Wilsonian era progressivism that gave you the income tax and the federal reserve also created government-run primaries.
When Wyoming was founded – and for more than two decades afterwards – political parties were private organizations that could nominate candidates without state involvement or interference.
But by 1912 the state was running the selection process for both major parties. And part of the state’s regime was to do away with the runoff elections that required a clear majority.
That’s the short history of how Eric Barlow became the Republican gubernatorial nominee with only 45% of the vote and Chuck Gray became its nominee to the U.S. House of Representatives with only 25% of the vote.
It’s not the fault of voters who failed to read the proper tea leaves and vote for their second choice on the first ballot. It is the fault of a state that has interfered with the right of Free Assembly.
So, let’s stop with the circular firing squad. Bien voters and Degenfelder voters faulting each other is as pointless as Barlow voters claiming a mandate without a clear majority.
This is not our first rodeo. Realists have come to expect such un-decisive decisions ever since the state took over the major parties’ nomination process.
Parties that were formed to correct the winner-take-all system were themselves forced to nominate by the same winner-take-all approach.
So, rather than whining about it, do something about it. No matter whom you supported, if you are led by your better angels, you should want to know if your candidate can garner a majority rather than slide into office with a mere plurality.
The best way to end this biennial bellyaching is to have a runoff election.
Our better angels have tried to do this since 2015. And in 2025, a runoff election bill (HB 249) passed out of the House. But ironically, senate leadership would not allow the body to vote on it.
Now, Teton County businesswoman and mother, Rebecca Bextel, weighed the loaded dice and decided not to play the game. Stepping out of the state-controlled majority parties, she sought and received nomination from the Constitution Party.
This has thrown the establishment off balance. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Who knows where this challenge to the status quo will end? If it leads to elected officials who have a broader consent of the people, we will all be better off.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/ Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
