Why You Might Want to Vote Prohibition (Although You Probably Can’t)
“The Case for Voting Prohibition!” It sounds like the proverbial “Slate pitch,” doesn’t it? But in this depressing era of American politics, shouldn’t more Americans have the chance to vote for an alternative “third party” like the Prohibition Party, which somehow is still around and has been putting up presidential candidates since 1872?
Well, perhaps not the actual Prohibition Party itself. Its last and only political triumph came over a century ago — stopping the production and sale of alcohol in the United States (“Prohibition”) — although proto-feminist groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union probably played a larger role. (READ MORE: How Kamala Bested Newsom in Their Decades-Long Feud)
The party fell victim to its own temporary success. In 1920, the year the 18th Amendment prohibiting “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” began to be enforced through the Volstead Act (drinking alcohol was still technically legal), the party garnered 189,000 votes for its presidential candidate. In 1924 the tally fell to 56,000.
Prohibition is now widely considered a counterproductive failure, leading to an increase in organized crime, and its 1933 repeal was greeted with near-universal relief.
Restrictive Ballot Access Rules Make it Hard for Third Parties
Today the party is an aging husk of its former self. A 2016 Guardian interview with then-Prohibition presidential candidate Jim Hedges noted that “All the current members are over 50, many in their 70s and 80s, and many are ultra-conservative. It’s not exactly a path to growth.”
In 2012, Prohibition held its national convention at a Holiday Inn Express in Cullman, Alabama, without the success the chain’s goofy commercials promised; it won a mere 518 recorded votes nationwide that year, all in Louisiana, the only state in which the party qualified for the ballot.
Results improved slightly in the next two cycles, 2016 and 2020, in which Prohibition was on the ballot in three and four states, respectively. But in 2024 the party’s reach has again been reduced to a single Southern state, Arkansas, which has more than its share of “dry” counties.
But why is it so hard to cast a vote for an admittedly obscure and perhaps unpalatable political party? Blame restrictive ballot access rules. While the party gained the 1000 signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot in Arkansas for 2024, many states make it much harder, including big ones like California, Texas, and especially New York, where not even the Libertarian Party, the nation’s largest third-party, qualified for the ballot this cycle. The vast resources of the two major American political parties (who have automatic ballot access in some states) are another hindrance against third parties, as is the winner-take-all structure of the Electoral College itself. (READ MORE: RFK Jr.’s Fight for Principle)
Yet a brief rundown of the platforms of the major (and some minor) parties suggests that on paper at least, the Prohibitionists aren’t really all that goofy and may actually be, relatively speaking, the party of reason. What this says about the current state of American politics is for you to decide, but it’s probably nothing good.
The Democratic Party platform:
- Length: 42,800 words, by far the longest platform analyzed.
- Most “out-there” statement (besides the “land acknowledgment” preamble): “When a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still wrong.” (Sounds like a busy day.)
- Mentions of ballot access: None; who needs the competition?
The Republican Party platform:
- Length: 5,300 words, including by far the most randomly capitalized letters of any platform.
- Most “out-there” plank: “Begin Largest Deportation Program in American History”
- Mentions of ballot access: None; who needs the competition?
The Libertarian Party platform:
- Length: 3,350 words, the most declarative document.
- Most “out-there” plank: “…we call for the repeal of the income tax, the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service and all federal programs and services not required under the U.S. Constitution.”
- Mentions of ballot access: “We oppose laws that effectively exclude alternative candidates and parties, deny ballot access, gerrymander districts, or deny the voters their right to consider all alternatives.”
- Length: 10,200 words. Mood: Dour.
- Most “out-there” plank: “Abolish the U.S. Senate by constitutional amendment.”
- Mentions of ballot access: The Green platform has surprisingly little to say about eliminating “high filing fees and petition signature thresholds, and unreasonably short qualification periods.” Two more paragraphs call for establishing federal baseline standards for ballot access.
The Prohibition Party platform:
- Length: 2,200 words, featuring the most interesting mix of issues, as if purposefully hewing to a reasonable middle. Buried lead: The Prohibition Party is pro-choice?: “We believe that each woman should have the right to decide based on her own conscience.”
- The most “out-there” plank (not counting the alcohol policy): “We advocate free community colleges with 4-year degree programs, as well as for vocational education.”
- Mentions of ballot access: “In many states, overly burdensome ballot access laws make it difficult for minor parties and independent candidates to get on the ballot. In doing so they undermine the ability of voters to express their democratic will. States should move to establish fairer ballot access standards that provide minor parties and independent candidates a reasonable opportunity to get on the ballot.”
The 2024 Prohibition platform samples shamelessly from the issue buffet, as if consciously toggling between the Left and Right before getting down to the main course at the very last page.
And its stance on alcohol is surprisingly mild. For one, the document lets actual drinkers off the hook morally, wagging the finger at Big Liquor instead. “The individual, and their right to drink if they wish, is not the cause — rather, the cause is the underlying organized liquor traffic and the subordination of uniformed Americans for profit.” The text sticks to statistics, not moralistic excoriations: “Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States.”
The Prohibition platform calls for a ban on alcohol advertising, “similar to the existing ban on tobacco advertising.” It also favors an increase in the alcohol tax while shrewdly suggesting alcohol is just one of a number of dangerous drugs.
Neo-Prohibition?
Is there an opening for a kinder, gentler prohibition in today’s United States? The anti-drinking stance doesn’t “code” as social conservative the way it used to. Today’s young adults are homebodies, socializing online, and not as eager to drive anywhere, including to bars. Alcohol use (and various other acts of risk-taking) is down among Generation Z, which is drinking 20 percent less alcohol than millennials did at the same age. The “French paradox” red-wine propaganda has been replaced by hectoring about “no safe dosage,” complete with the druggy connotations of the word “dosage.”
“Dry January” is a thing, as are the new, supposedly improved adult nonalcoholic beverages. There’s also been a replacement effect among the young, with cannabis-related products (gummies and even beverages) taking the place of alcohol in fostering relaxation and convivial vibes. (READ MORE: Kamala Harris’ Bait and Switch on Positions and Values)
But even if you wanted to support such policies, could you do it without resorting to a hopeless write-in vote?
Some liberals will never forgive Green Party candidate and consumer activist Ralph Nader for supposedly siphoning votes from Al Gore in Florida in 2000 and allowing George W. Bush to win the state and with it the presidency. This explains why the purported defenders of democracy are trying to keep two minor left-wing candidates off the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin, while also trying to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot in those states even after Kennedy withdrew his campaign there — to eliminate any competition on Kamala Harris’s left.
Loosening ballot restrictions would be a cumbersome, state-by-state process, with both major parties presumably reluctant to give up their advantage. But it would inject competition and new ideas into presidential matchups depressing enough to drive voters to drink.
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