The voting system currently used in the United States does not accurately model voter preference when there are more than two candidates for an office (see the Center for Voting and Democracy for details.) This tends to concentrate power in two large and stable parties, a lose-lose condition for democratic change. The fundamental problem this site attempted to address in 2000 was a voting system that seldom offers even two choices in any election. This situation was unchanged in 2004, and was highlighted again by a Democratic party forced to concern itself primarily with beating Bush rather than with nominating the best possible candidate.

In 2000, votetrader.org operated an online voter matching service where Nader supporters in swing states were paired with Gore supporters in decided states, to faciliate dialogue and possibly strategic voting. Voters that participated were attempting to find a way out of the bind they were placed in by our unfair voting system: they wanted to register their vote for Nader (to "vote their conscience", and to qualify the Green Party for federal campaign funds in 2004), but they also felt it was critical to register their preference for Gore over Bush. Strategic vote trading was again practiced during the 2004 presidental election - see VotePair.

Note on the 2008 presidential election: to be a useful strategy, vote pairing requires (1) a very close race between the top two candidates and (2) one or more strong third party candidates. These do not appear to characterize the 2008 election. In 2008, one alternative voting strategy is a Vote Pact.

You can visit VotePair to learn about strategic vote pairing in the 2004 presidential election, and read up on voting reform at the Center for Voting and Democracy.

Curious about the impact of voteswapping in the 2000 presidential election? See these results.

votetrader.org is hosted by Electric Embers.

Comments/questions? Email comments@votetrader.org.