Only in a broken democracy…
Yes. That’s what we are stuck with at the moment, though.
Either you play the have you’re dealt or you don’t complain when you forfeit the game.
There are way more options than playing or forfeiting when you find out the game is rigged…like flipping over the table chasing the dealer with a whip. Jesus style.
Even for tiny, tiny social media platforms like the fediverse, the current propaganda/misinformation campaign is tailor-made for the expected audience.
E.g., on Facebook it might be enough to post AI slop depicting Trump as a saint. Here, that won’t fly. You have to understand that a lot of lefties and educated people reside here, so you just have to point the undecided to a third party. Maybe you’re not even after the actual undecided, spreading FUD is usually good enough. And a healthy dose of “both sides”!Of course, it’s vital to omit the fact that FPTP systems always devolve into two-party systems (a fact well understood), and you’re good to go. Easy rubles probably.
We need ranked choice voting, so you can vote for who you actually support without throwing your vote away.
Which will never happen because the Republicans are dead set on never changing any system in any way that’s not directly in their benefit and no one else’s. Until that moment arrives, which is never, the only option is to pick your particular flavour of straight-up fascism (Republicans these days) or anything else (Democrats) in the party primaries.
One of the few advantages of our splintered system of states is that voting is done on a state level. We can implement ranked-choice voting in states where Republicans are weak, and in doing so, allow states that aren’t filled with fascists to choose between multiple non-fascist ideologies, instead of just fascists and ‘whoever is left’.
Don’t fool yourself. The DNC also doesn’t want ranked choice voting. Neither party wants any competition. The entire system is built to make it virtually impossible for a third party candidate to win. Unless they actually hit 270+, even if they were a clear majority winner, they wouldn’t be elected.
The local Democratic party literally opposes the ranked choice voting bill on my local ballot. So do the Republicans surprise surprise. They agreed on something! Bipartisanship!
Ever since reading about some strange properties of RCV – which ended up being displayed in Alaska’s first election using it and caused it to be repealed in Vermont – I’ve been a bit suspect of it. Systems such as STAR voting and approval voting seem better.
That’s not strange, that’s how it works. Especially if there’s a strong ‘anyone but Palin’ contingent.
Star and approval look fucking terrible and is way out of line of the ‘one person one vote’ system we have and I think we want.
*For anyone wondering about Alaska, there were two Republicans, including Palin, and one Democrat running for house seat. The other Republican was eliminated in ranked choice. Essentially his votes split to both the Dem and Palin, instead of all going to Palin like the Palin people wanted, and the Democrat won. So the GOP there is now mad.
The GOP was maybe mad, but more importantly to me the people who actually study voting systems for a living were “mad”, and the people who hurt their favored candidate by voting for them were likely upset.
Ignoring that the outcome was maybe what I would have wanted, it is definitely pathological that you can hurt a candidate by voting for them. Quoting the Wikipedia:
The election was also a negative voting weight event, where a voter’s ballot has the opposite of its intended effect (e.g. a candidate being disqualified for having “too many votes”). In this race, Begich lost as a result of 5,200 ballots ranking him ahead of Peltola; Peltola also would have lost if she had received more support from Palin voters.
What do you find wrong with those other systems? RCV is also not “one person one vote”. Approval voting is used in the UN and neither seem to have some of the pathologies of RCV.
Bit of a late edit here, but isn’t “one person one vote” basically the description of our current problem with voting? All of these systems are trying to solve that issue.
I will be voting for Kamala, because I do think it’s very important that Trump not get reelected. I hope she wins, but her winning alone will not be enough. We need to do a better job of figuring out why America is in the state that it is in, so that we can come up with ways to fix it (assuming it can be fixed).
Absolutely. Voting is incredibly important, but on its own, it just buys time. Without time, we can do nothing - but if we are determined to do nothing, all the time in the world won’t save us.
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Well, the absolute freedom of speech might be a thing to look at, as blatant lying and fascist rhetoric are not countered by more speech. Especially not if money = speech. As this gives the robber barons unfair advantage.
only if you’re in a swing state. In which case vote tactically. If you’re not in a swing state do not vote trump and do not vote Harris. Instead vote third party there to maybe get a 5% national representation and therefore get more funding for em.
Voting tactics woo.
Also if enough people in California, NY, etc. Vote third party they may deny Harris a popular vote win while still allowing her to win in EC. This would both send a message about ignoring the left and might make it so Republicans start supporting getting rid of the electoral college too.
If both of the parties had an election stolen from them in less then a decade due to this dumb antiquated system maybe they’ll muster some political will to get rid of it.
A great point. Republicans will never vote to remove the EC unless it hurts them and theoretically this could.
Screw Republicans by voting literally whoever besides trump and Harris in Cali
These morons at the bar were talking about how they plan to vote 3rd party to “show them” they’re sick of two party.
We’re all sick of two party but voting 3rd party right now doesn’t magically fix it. And in this particular election it could possibly mean you never get to vote again.
In a democracy, you only get a voice if you vote. Voting IS the protest. When you don’t vote, or spoil your vote, you abdicate your voice.
I don’t completely disagree with you here. But when you only get 2 real options that don’t align with what you really want, then do you actually have a voice? It feels like to me we can pick x, y, or if we want to waste our vote then z. Z is what some people really want, it’s not gonna happen, but that’s what they want. But they must settle for x or y. How is their voice being heard?
Fixing that requires long-term thinking and action. Something that the Greens and others refuse to do. If Stein, hypothetically was elected, at best, it would be a lame duck presidency because she would have no support from any other branch (except for things supported by Putin).
Local elections, primaries, and congressional seats are needed for actual change. That doesn’t have the immediate gratification though of visibly pretending to do something, regardless of if it actually helps.
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Voting 3rd party for progressivism is the biggest self own in history. And repeatedly too.
Wrong. One is exactly twice as bad as the other.
One is way better than the other if you’re a Trump supporter!
Mathematically, it’s still exactly one half as bad as bad to not vote than to vote for the Republican party, regardless of who you are. A vote Republican swings the count 2 points relative to voting Democrat. No vote, 1 point relative to voting Democrat.
In the current situation you could try to pretend that your vote is useful by not voting or voting third parties. But that it is not the reality of the consequences.
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Technically, there can be a difference, but only if you are a Trump supporter
The idea that voting for a third-party candidate is somehow “helping” one of the major party candidates is based on the assumption that the third-party candidate’s voters would have otherwise voted for one of the major party candidates.
Well, it’s based on that assumption if you’re a leftist. Harris has spent the last two months tailoring her message to center-right Republicans, but if they vote for Trump or the Libertarian candidate, the centrist Dems aren’t going to blame them. However, if the leftists that her campaign has been deliberately ignoring vote third-party, then they’re entirely to blame.
Anyway, if you live in a swing state, you should vote for Harris, harm reduction, etc., etc. But if the Democrats are going to exclusively target centrists, it would be nice if they blamed the centrists for not voting for them.
By not voting for harris in FPTP, you assist trump, the only other viable alternative.
This includes not voting.
It’s because of this mentality that the US has this shitty two party system.
It seems that way. This is the actual reason:
It’s such a piddly little cause from such an unassumimg source!
Cause and effect reversed there buddy
Nope. The reason we have a shitty system is because the oligarchs have captured I from the beginning. We, the victims, are just trying our best to avoid fascism.
