I dont like that voting third party in the US is essentially a non-vote for a party in the “system,” but it is. I voted green party in the past, and ended up regretting it. And relavent to Stein, not a good person, or even party, to vote for now. Folks need to be active, and vote down ballot, and in “off cycle” years. Change takes time, the best way to be heard is through the down ballot when helpful.
It really does suck. The current voting system not only discourages anything other than a two party system, it basically guarantees it. And then it becomes one of those things where why the hell would one of those two parties, who’s perpetually in charge, ever vote to change a system that would allow for another party (or parties) to come into power? It’s just gonna be a slog to ever get it fully changed to something like ranked choice. But I’d absolutely love to be proven wrong.
many states have initiative systems. Alaska, for instance, implented a solid Ranked Choice Voting system for statewide elections. As we see from weed legalization: eventually ballot measures get soaked up by major parties.
The current electoral system has myriad problems, and you’re absolutely right that focussing on local seats is a better path. I’m glad we’ve been seeing more comments like yours that do understand the stakes.
For people who rightly feel their interests aren’t adequately represented, rather than voting for spoilers or not voting at all, the best way to actually help fix these problems is to become an activist for electoral reform – starting now for 2028 and beyond. It usually feels like an afterthought brought up a month or two before the election, which is far too late.
Organisations like FairVote Action have been working to get alternative voting methods implemented in various states, and they’ve had some success.
If we want to escape this unfair and undemocratic voting system that’s shackled us to mediocrity and allowed fascism to gain a foothold, we have to keep thinking, educating, and acting now for the future. It’s doable if we work towards it.
Yep, I was also a young idiot that voted 3rd party in a swing state in 2016. Regretted it ever since. I admit that I put the way I viewed myself and what my values were were more important to me than anything. What I did was selfish and I’m fully on the Harris bandwagon.
Your ‘protest vote’ for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
And it always has been.
Sometimes the Green Party protest vote is a vote for George H.W. Bush.
And George W. Bush.
And Donald Trump (the first time).
If the Green Party wasn’t a thing, there would be a lot of elections that the Republicans wouldn’t have won, because the margins were just that thin.
That’s assuming green party voters would vote for the dems, which probably isn’t the case. They’d be more likely to just not vote.
I’m not sure I agree with that estimation, but even then I’d say that the majority of Green Party voters who would decide to vote anyways would probably vote Dem over GOP, and that still matters.
Because only one of those parties is trying to deny me basic human rights, I can’t say I’m sympathetic to anyone who would choose not to vote out of spite just because they don’t personally have as much at stake.
You must not have been alive in the 90s or 00s if you think Dems wouldnt and dont want to deny your basic human rights
I remember when the Dems repealed roe v Wade.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
I was definitely there when the dems tried to ban music based on it’s offensive nature.
Oh wait that was Reagan and the GOP. My mistake.
I was there when the Dems banned foreign travelers based on nationality.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
Neither Dems nor the GOP did the first one, Dems did fail to ever codify the right to privacy or bodily autonomy though, despite every legal scholar for 50 years saying roe was a Shakey decision.
The second one never happened, unless you’re confused by just the general existence of the FCC with your half remembered fantasy, and yes, I do remember when Dems fully supported banning travellers based on nationality, Biden cowrote that bill.
That could mean that 60% of the US leans green.
Or they’re just apathetic and attaching a social meaning to their apathy feels good.
Guess the Democrats would be better served by being more welcoming rather than just calling Green Party voters idiots then.
Not idiots, just woefully misguided to the detriment of others.
And you guys wonder why you all lose voters to third parties. lmao
Because you can’t self reflect?
Don’t confuse your ego with the world outside yourself.
I have no problem with any of that. I’m just not voting for your candidate. Thanks!
No, no one is wondering why a tiny fraction of the public willfully chooses to throw their vote away. It’s actually impressive that on this one issue only half a percent or so are so woefully uneducated. We don’t need to wonder why, all we are concerned with is that fascism is on the ballot and so we need you to stop spreading this donkey-brainery because we even need morons to vote for Harris. If Trump is elected, as everyone paying attention knows, we are absolutely fucked. No amount of pretending to be a socialist will change that. Btw, come the fuck on. You are not a socialist. We all know what you are. WoKeFrEe is perhaps the only sliver of truth in that story you call a profile.
she ran during obama as well so it was also, technically, a vote for mccain
I wish we’d yell at the non-voters at least as equally as the 3rd party voters.
I wish we’d yell at democrats for failing to appeal to voters, which is really one of the most basic responsibilities of a politician.
It’s impossible to appeal to everyone. 6 in 10 Americans believe Israel has a right to continue it’s fight with Hamas. 6 in 10 Americans are also sympathetic to both sides of the conflict. The Dems are attempting to thread that needle. And while I don’t agree with the unconditional support of Israel. The US is heavily invested in partnership with Israel and foreign policy has always shifted painfully slow. Despite all the death in the world, the US is involved in the least death it has been involved in since the WWII. We’ve been constantly at war since WWII. And shifting from the US being constantly at war to only arming our allies is at least some improvement.
One things certain, if Trump wins authoritarians will be emboldened worldwide and the amount of death will increase much much more, including here.
Forget appealing to everyone, democratic party policy fails to appeal even to democratic party supporters: https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/5/8/support-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-in-gaza-increases-across-party-lines
Given these polls, one would think that the democratic party wouldn’t be so supportive of israel, the far-right party in charge there, and its campaign of genocide, yet the party keeps going full throttle all-in on support. Democrats like to use the excuse of their hands being tied, but their hands aren’t tied here. In fact, if democrats did nothing it would be an improvement, because they’re actually putting in the extra effort to increase funding to israel and vetoing UN resolutions against them.
Yeah I generally agree, but I suspect that every politician that attends national security meetings is constantly being told that Israel is a necessary partner. Combine that with a strong Christian and Jewish Israel lobby and even a good person may recognize that they can’t gain power to do all the things they want and also oppose funding Israel at the same time.
It’s the paradox of political power, it’s why if I went back into politics I would do activism instead of elected office, with activism you have the freedom to put your energy where you want without compromise. In politics compromise is fundamental, even necessary, even when dealing with unquestionably immoral things. Personally I think being afraid to spend your political capital means you have failed, but id also probably lose if I ran for office.
If the dems actually wanted to destroy trump, they should’ve nominated michelle.
The dems actually want genocide instead.
How they gonna nominate someone that has only ever said they will never run for president. Dumbest take I have ever seen on lemmy. Michelle would never be president, she doesn’t want it.
Yes the Dems need to win but you’re giving them too much credit. We don’t need to make them sound competent with “they’re threading the needle”, because they aren’t. Doing that will give people a false sense of security that there are adults in the room. At best, the voters are the adults, not the Dems.
Have you met voters? Pretending like voters are any better would be pretty hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
Doesn’t that explain what our parties have to offer though?
They don’t care, they’ve got corporate cash to spend.
Amen!
What’s “appeal”?
If the other side being absolutely fucking insane isn’t itself a reason to vote dem then you’re just a contrarian ass
Exactly. It’s the apithetic and doomer non-voters that are the real issue in US elections. Voter turn out is usually abhorrently low.
People can have all the fights they want about third party votes for president and other high offices, but third parties have great potential to make local/regional change. Sometimes it feels like people forget there is more than just a president in this country.
Right?!
I’m not seeing any non-voters in these types of threads.
But yeah, non voters are a bigger problem.
Me too. It’d take some of the heat off of me for once! haha
Who is this article for?
It doesn’t address the real problem here: That first past the post voting is a broken system and that main party candidates should make more effort to fix this glaring hole in the voting system.
Because fptp is garbage, third parties are little more than a method to undermine a candidates opposition (in the US in 2024 the green party is ironically propped up in part by the republican party)
By leaving out fptp it just sounds like anti democracy drivel.
first past the post voting is a broken system and that main party candidates should make more effort to fix this glaring hole in the voting system.
The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
That aside, the major parties don’t want to reform the system they have because it’s worked very well for them. Our parties are incredibly old by world standards. The Democrats have been around since the 18th century, and the Republicans have been around since the 1850s.
Some level of election reform will be on the ballot in 9 states this fall. Make sure you vote, if you can!
Also worth noting that these efforts are generally led mainly by democrats, with support from some moderate republicans. In contrast, 10 republican-led state legistatures have passed outright bans on RCV. One of these parties is not like the other!
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/05/nx-s1-4969563/ranked-choice-voting-bans
The democrats supported RCV in my state.
The problem is if you believe this entirely then there’s no mechanism to affect parties. Which is easy to disprove.
The overarching reality is that the parties are affected by things: culturally there’s been a long period (150 years) of slowly unrestricting people with lots of resistance. Then there’s also a economic right wing drift for decades, largely along capital accumulation lines.
I buy the idea that the parties are hard to affect but the idea they are impossible to affect seems ahistorical.
Lol there’s definitely a way to affect them.
Two actually.
One is $$$$
The other one you aren’t allowed to propose.
?There’s several ways to affect politics
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Corruption - largely the higher corruption is the more advocates to lower taxes for their donors. This is driven by capital accumulation.
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Bottom up struggles - largely if a number of states do a thing the federal politicians will pick it up. Voting rights, marijuana legalization etc fall into this. Realistically this is probably the way to pick up votes.
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Media driven - Trump is primarily influenced this way with scares, fear, bullshit. The last 40 years are driven heavily by media scares funded by right wing billionaires. Factual information sometimes breaks through here: I would argue the obamacare ban on pre-existing conditions was the outcome of a media cycle. Usually these are bad rather than good.
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Personal affectations of politicians. Cheney’s daughter caused him to be sensible on gay rights, McCain’s stance on torture was a result of his time as a POW. George Bush’s daddy issues about Iraq lead to millions of people dying. If enough people shoot at trump I do see him passing gun legislation (not encouraging it, just speculation)
Indeed politics is a tea kettle in the Lagrange zone between the earth and the moon.
But I was suggesting methods for affecting political parties.
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The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
Exactly! I wish I could upvote you more than once, friend!
I wish we had ranked choice voting, it just makes so much more sense
Yeah, and there are two major parties that don’t really want ranked choice voting. lol
There is really only one major party against ranked choice voting. Every year, Democratic caucuses vote to add ranked choice voting to their platform. Democrats have managed to get Ranked Choice Voting in several cities.
Republicans do not. Republicans repeal RCV. Every RCV repeal in the US was done by Republicans.
Both parties are not the same, and if you really want a third party candidate, you’re better off getting rid of every Republican you can.
This is exactly what I came to say. Dems also seem like the best chance to get the 127 DC states plan into play, after which we could easily see a surge in third parties (without the harm thanks to having nation wide RCV)
I mean doyee?
No one’s voting 3rd party because they think they’ll win, they’re just throwing away a vote for Harris. Their statement is that they have no issue with another 4 years of Trump because their demands aren’t being met anyway (cough genocide).
You can argue all day about the rationality and lack of utilitarianism, but it won’t change anything.
If MLK were alive, he’d probably vote Democrat because he believes there is a solution in comprise over time, and keeping Republicans out is beneficial to that. (He generally favored the more progressive party).
If Malcolm X were alive, he’d probably be protesting just like the uncommitted group, but choose not to vote if his major demand wasn’t met, because his reasoning would be that any promised or hypothetical solutions would not come to fruition. (The Ballot or the Bullet)
Both have valid reasoning, and it can obviously depend on the situation, but it bugs me that 50 years later people still don’t understand why people choose to vote a certain way.
“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection” - MLK
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Maybe Democrats need to work harder and be more welcoming.
Change won’t come overnight (at least without revolution). Like evolution, it requires constant pressure on the system. Changes that are too radical kill the organism.
A long as people think we can jump from Geoge H.W. Bush to Bernie Sanders in one election it’s going to continue to fail.
Votw Harris this time. Vote for the person slightly more liberal than her next time, etc. It’s a process.
That’s one of my issues though, Harris is less liberal than Obama. It went in the opposite direction.
I advocated that Biden step down and allow a primary. Instead they ran with the VP because the DNC is not interested in actually bringing a more liberal or leftist candidate.
Meanwhile Trump has made Bush look good in comparison, so even if he stops running, an equal or worse candidate will simply take his place, and then we’ll be faced with a similar problem.
It would take 20 years to make a grassroots movement work, but if we never start it’s never gonna happen.
I’m 60. I would argue that 20 years is not a long time. Keep pushing.
Presumably because the US electorate isn’t actually leftist or progressive in general and losing swing states wouldn’t be balanced by extra votes in safe blue states.
But with the Democratic party, the conversation is ALWAYS “Vote us this time…” or “This election is too important!” They’ve been saying that for 50 years. Nah, friend. Now is the time for me to vote third party. Tired of waiting.
How is throwing your vote into a hole going to help exactly?
I’m voting for someone I believe in and who matches my values. If the duopoly has a problem with that, then they can work harder to welcome me rather than mock me for not voting for them.
So it “helps” because I’m voting for who I want to. As the system should be.
As it should be but not how it is.
But it can be that way if people stop being so scared to stray from the Duopoly.
Yeah we will just pretend the supreme Court back to being not packed with ultra conservative assholes. You know, something a socialist would give a flying fuck about
You can’t get to a progressive candidate this way. A more progressive candidate is going to pull votes more from the left than the right. If you project the results at the point where the progressive candidate starts to matter they just tank the Democrat.If they take 80% of Democratic voters they just lose every state.
We could also achieve universal peace if everyone just threw down their weapons, and no one would go hungry if everyone would stop being greedy. Unfortunately, people aren’t rational, and there’s cultural/social constructs that keep these things from happening.
If we want to change them for the better, we unfortunately have to operate within the constraints we’re faced with. We can change those constraints with hard work, but can’t just act as if those constraints don’t exist. It’s the same way folks pretend that being “color blind” re: racial issues will solve things. Would be great, but sadly plenty of folks are incapable of not being racist, and historical harms mean that we can’t just pretend that perception is the only problem.
So your solution is to try harder within the current system, like many others have done for the last 50 years, but this time it will be different! If the problem is with the system, work on changing the system while achieving the best you can until the system has changed. Who you vote for in this election won’t have any impact on the system. This will require a different approach. Vote for who you like, but don’t fool yourself that this will make anyone with power change their stance or plan. Your actions are part of the system working as intended.
This is technically true, but it’s quite tough.
If extradimentional aliens from outside the multiverse came in and reprogrammed everyone who was a Dem (and only Dems) so that they suddenly switched and voted for West, we likely would have West as our next president.
The difficulty in the current system is that it basically enforces two parties. Makes people afraid to leave. Reform like RCV would make this easier, and allow for events to snowball (a 3rd party might have a good showing in an earlier RCV round as people are less afraid of having their vote wasted, and then the next election more people are willing to vote for that person, until it’s enough to cause an actual win).
It’s unlikely that Dems keep the Senate. But with I-WV and I-AZ retiring, if Dems take the presidency and both houses, we might have enough finally to drop the filibuster and push through real reforms… (we did in 2020 but Manchin wouldn’t have gone along with it, making it 49:51 with reform losing.)
The US isn’t causing the genocide in Gaza and it will if anything be exacerbated if we bring in Trump to support Bebe
The US isn’t causing the genocide in Gaza
Peak liberal delusion.
In brief the Israelis stole the Palestinians land both historically and literally continuing to this day. The Palestinians have both historically and to this day retaliated with horrific acts of violence often against women and children. Both sides are immoral shitbags who are fighting for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the US.
Arguably at this point Biden/Harris could pull out all the stops and pull all support for Israel in hopes of influencing their decision making. This would probably cause the Democrats to lose the election bringing in the guy who wants to build condos on the rubble and the bones of all the dead Palestinians.
Fucking well said. And you have my upvote for mentioning my man, Malcom X. Great post!
No one’s voting 3rd party because they think they’ll win, they’re just throwing away a vote for Harris.
Would you prefer people voting 3rd party not vote at all?
If Malcolm X were alive
Why Malcolm X’s Family Is Suing the FBI, NYPD, and CIA 58 Years After His Death
Do you seriously think X was pro-FBI? Why on earth would he support a candidate who was?
Did… did you even read what I wrote…?
My point was that he is exactly against the system and playing it by voting for a major party. His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose, regardless of whether you vote 3rd party or not at all.
My point was that he is exactly against the system and playing it by voting for a major party.
That’s not true.
His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose
That’s a wildly inaccurate interpretation
What does this mean? It means that when white people are evenly divided, and Black people have a bloc of votes of their own, it is left up to them to determine who’s going to sit in the White House and who’s going to be in the dog house.
A ballot is like a bullet. You don’t throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.
Straight from his speech lol.
You don’t throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.
That’s very different from
His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose
He was arguing to abstain from voting without a quality candidates on the ballot. Not to court mediocre candidates by promising them your vote.
If you think casting any ballot is a form of protest you need to learn what real protest looks like.
Hint: It doesn’t involve participating in the system you’re protesting.
Not voting indirectly also is a vote for Trump.
Not voting isn’t a protest either. Disrupting the voting? That would be a protest. But the Greens and Stein don’t have the balls for that.
no, it’s not
Yeah…. She’s a disaster and always has been. Been saying this for years.
Sigh. Sorry deleted by moderator for replying with same thing they said which was I feel necessarily aggressive but it’s understandable.
Anyways;
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
Those voting 3rd party will still vote dem down ballot often and will also support dems on amendments and ballot measures.
It is not worth losing the vote across the board, so just chill out and let them vote.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes. Biggest difference in PSL/Green and DNC is stance in Israel/palestine and some socialist policies. (Well and PSL wants to nationalize the top 100 companies, but that’s probably too much of an ask). Instead of any of that they’ve decided to praise Israel and crack down on immigration. So… sure if you want to court republicans go for it but don’t cry when leftists refuse to vote for you.
Also… people complaining trump supporters don’t vote 3rd party: 80% of third party votes in 2020 were right (libertarian+constitution at 1.22%) 20% were leftist (Green+PSL at 0.31%) so… yeah… 4x more right wing than left wing 3rd party voters.
Edit: updated numbers using 2020 data.
Those down ballot victories wont mean much in an environment where we have carved out the heart of our democracy and replaced it with dictatorship. Also the problem with the policy positions that would allow Democrats to win n green voters are also such that adopting them would cost >n moderates which is why people haven’t adopted those positions mercenary though they are.
The green voters should adopt a pragmatic strategy whilst pushing for stuff like ranked choice voting or some such at the state level which would allow them to actually win federal office something they haven’t done in 40 years!
I don’t really see the appeal of Jill Stein but going after the few thousand people voting her is a ridiculous plan. It’s not like they are going to vote for third party or Republican senators. If they are going to vote third party, they are doing it for key issues; no point in shooting yourself in the foot so that they become nonvoters and you Congress seats.
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
That’s not the only alternative. There is overlap in the spheres of voters of the green party and democratic party.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes.
The issue is the spoiler effect which is a result of the overlap.
Again, 4x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left. If it was they would’ve actively tried and court progressives past Obama. The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised. It’s pretty obvious why many refuse to vote for a woman who used DNC funds to fight against the progressive candidate in primaries, or an old man who helped write one of the biggest anti-crime bills (which ends up a large anti-minority bill) and said nothing will fundamentally change, or now a prosecutor who is “tough on immigration” refuses to denounce those actively committing genocide.
Medicare for all, or not supporting a genocide, or plenty of other options available to help attract progressives if they wanted it.
BUT again, rather than not vote at all those can at least vote 3rd party and still help down ballot. A lot better to win house and senate than lose everything.
Edit: updated to correct ratio of 4x based on 2020 data
Again, 6x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left.
On its own that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn’t tell you how much overlap there is, and therefore how much spoiling there is. And regardless of which side, the spoiler effect is a symptom of a terrible voting system. The entrance of an irrelevant candidate should not sway the results of an election at all.
Additionally, everything is looking like it will be a very close race, in which case every bit of the spoiler effect matters, even if more of it is on the right, which you haven’t established.
The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised
I don’t like it either. But my point stands, there is an alternative choice.
The problem here is the spoiler effect, the system in which we elect representatives. It is in large part what allows the doupoly to remain uncompetitive.
You say 3rd party is irrelevant but also that 4x(revised now that I looked up exact numbers from 2020) more right 3rd party doesn’t prove it’s more than the left…. If there are only 2 relevant parties then… right goes to right, left goes to left. Shock. Awe. Ignore the weird centrist or actual independent or etc ones as those are hard to place.
Again, the issue is not that we have any third party vote. We should. It should be encouraged. It’s a fucking democracy. Dems trying to say trump will end democracy while simultaneously trying to remove 3rd parties is wild.
If we look at 2008 the left actually had 1.16x more than the right on 3rd party votes, and still won by 7% (10x the 3rd party votes on the left) where as 2016 the right had 3x the lefts 3rd party votes (2016 was a big third party year at ~3% right vs ~1% left. Who would guess 2 bad candidates leaves a huge 3rd party.) and then in 2020 the right had 4x the lefts third party votes. If anyone should be worried about “spoiler” candidates it’s the right as their third party has grown a lot more than the lefts. Hell 2020 the left lowered by half of 2008 (Even the crazy year 2016 it was only 0.71% of possible voters, 2020 was only 0.2% of possible voters. 2008 was 0.43% of possible voters.)
Trump has literally said he would end democracy. Third parties literally by design are either irrelevant or destroy the party they are most like because of the electoral college. Trying to prevent a situation in which a third party acts as a willing pawn to spoil an election is pro democratic in terms of leading to an outcome that is desirable to a larger portion of the electorate.
You say 3rd party is irrelevant
No I didn’t. I said the introduction of an irrelevant candidate (meaning one that did not win) should have no effect on the outcome of an election.
I looked up exact numbers from 2020) more right 3rd party doesn’t prove it’s more than the left…. If there are only 2 relevant parties then… right goes to right, left goes to left. Shock
If we look at 2008 the left actually had 1.16x more than the right on 3rd party votes, and still won by 7% (10x the 3rd party votes on the left) where as 2016 the right had 3x the lefts 3rd party votes (2016 was a big third party year at ~3% right vs ~1% left. Who would guess 2 bad candidates leaves a huge 3rd party.) and then in 2020 the right had 4x the lefts third party votes.
As I already explained, that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn’t say anything about how much overlap and therefore vote spoiling is taking place. I’ll demonstrate:
- Voters 0 through 40 like the green party
- Voters 30 through 230 like the democratic party
- Voters 220 through 410 prefer the republican party
- Voters 400 through 510 prefer the libertarian party.
That means green has 40 potential votes, democrat has 200 potential votes, republican has 190 potential votes, and libertarian has 100 potential votes.
There is double the number of 3rd party voters on the right than the left. But it doesn’t matter, because the dems overlap with 10 voters of the green party. And the repubs overlap with 10 voters of the libertarian party. They’ll more or less cancel each other out despite there being way more right wing 3rd party votes.
Unless you have data to show how much overlap there is, this statistic is meaningless.
It should be encouraged.
Not in a FPTP system, because that leads to the spoiler effect.
It’s a fucking democracy.
The United States is a failed democracy by any reasonable measure.
I love that you love this theory that you cannot possibly get any data on magically but also cannot realize that the 0.7% of the total vote in 2016 the leftist third parties got is almost 10x less than the loss from voter turnout between 2016 and 2020. the 40% of people who simply did not vote at all are a BIIIIIIT more to blame than the 0.7% of people who voted third party, no matter how many of them would overlap with the DNC or not.
Spoiler candidates exist, sure, but that is shit like IIRC when republicans in miami funded a dude who didn’t live in florida in a miami race because he has the same legal name as the democrat who was running.
That is a lot different than third parties who aren’t even getting 1% of the vote. the DNC shot themselves in the face in 2016 and cannot get over it, so they would rather continue to scapegoat bernie bros and green party instead of just admitting their plan of pissing off as many progressives as humanly possible and trying to court republicans instead has not worked extremely well.
and finally, if you’re cool with FPTP then great for you, keep voting DNC. No need to remove money from politics, support the poor, stop genocide, or anything important that would lose us money when we have something more evil than us to vote against! Yay! Some aren’t stoked on how complicit in that idea the DNC is. I’m not going to tell someone with a straight face that democrats will fix everything we just have to vote for them another 600 times so they can… keep going further from progress each year. Example being immigration they’re pushing which is fully 2 steps backward to take one step forward.
I love that you love this theory that you cannot possibly get any data on magically but also cannot realize that the 0.7% of the total vote in 2016 the leftist third parties got is almost 10x less than the loss from voter turnout between 2016 and 2020
It’s not a theory or hypothesis. It is how a venn diagram works, it’s geometry. And both geometry and that loss of turnout can be the case, they are not mutually exclusive. And I also never said that those who didn’t turn out to the polls weren’t to blame. You’re putting words in my mouth at this point.
the 40% of people who simply did not vote at all are a BIIIIIIT more to blame than the 0.7% of people who voted third party,
Both are to blame. Anybody who didn’t vote or voted for a candidate who had no chance is 100% to blame. Distinguishing blame by group isn’t of value.
Spoiler candidates exist
I’m glad we agree. That’s the whole point.
they would rather continue to scapegoat bernie bros and green party instead of just admitting their plan of pissing off as many progressives as humanly possible and trying to court republicans instead has not worked extremely well.
You’re preaching to the choir. I hate their shitty ass strategy too.
and finally, if you’re cool with FPTP then great for you, keep voting DNC.
I am explicitly not cool with it.
No need to remove money from politics, support the poor, stop genocide, or anything important that would lose us money when we have something more evil than us to vote against! Yay! Some aren’t stoked on how complicit in that idea the DNC is. I’m not going to tell someone with a straight face that democrats will fix everything we just have to vote for them another 600 times so they can… keep going further from progress each year. Example being immigration they’re pushing which is fully 2 steps backward to take one step forward.
Welcome to FPTP two party systems.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis, and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option. This means there is no spoiler.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis
No, it’s well understood, and very clearly exists. Here is an example using randomly generated voters ans candidates:
Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates" Total people: 1047 Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER Sahl - 111 votes
Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates" Total people: 1047 Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER Kruger - 93 votes Maikol - 91 votesThe problem is that these are in effect venn diagrams. There will always be overlap, and that’s the problem. That’s what leads to election results being changed by the entrance of an irrelevant candidate (the spoiler effect).
and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
That’s because the spoiler effect most easily happens in races that are already close, because we don’t do much actual real life testing with actual elections because of the uncountable number of variables, and because doing it the python data science way is significantly more meaningful because of the aforementioned number of variables problem.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option.
If that’s really true, then this whole idea about the democratic party trying to earn the votes of green voters is bunk. Either there is no overlap, in which case it’s bunk. Or there is overlap, in which case we have a spoiler effect.
You have just proven my point, it’s not a thing that happens in reality if it were you’d point to actual data, not randomly generated test cases where the hypothesis works assuming everyone has to vote and is going to vote.
To your second point, they not trying to win voters, Dems have never attempted to court anyone left of Reagan voters, ever. The point is demoralization. Non voters are better than energized voters that will never vote for you; the latter group protests, riots, threatens your monopoly on power.
it’s not a thing that happens in reality if it were you’d point to actual data
I already explained why this is a terrible goalpost. But even under this terrible goalpost you’re still not correct.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect
See the section under “Notable unintentional spoilers”
Additionally the 2000 election:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader_2000_presidential_campaign
not randomly generated test cases where the hypothesis works assuming everyone has to vote and is going to vote.
That’s already accounted for. The gray dots are non voters. Including non voters doesn’t actually change the math, because the math is the overlap of circles. It is already only accounting for the subset of people who are voters.
You went to a lot of effort here to present that very clearly, and I salute you. I’d like to think others here are just blinded by their own ideals, and that’s why nobody is answering, not because they were just arguing for a side they didn’t believe in and don’t have response to that.
Thank you. I’d hesitate to speculate exactly why it hasn’t been addressed.
But at least part of it is because arguing against what I’ve presented is akin to arguing that 2 + 2 != 4
Yep! I’m one of them who thinks like that.
the supreme court run by the Federalist Society is seeing a serious deterioration in rights and a vast expansion of corporatism. I’d argue the denial of more federalist society court judges is far more valuable (to both americans at home and the international community at large) than literally anything the fringe parties could contribute
likely a green party president would just be impeached if he/she refused to tow the line on israel or whatever - note that trumps first impeachment was on denying ukraine weapons.
While I appreciate the idea that we have a democracy in the US - corporate rule has become far more likely because of a decades long campaign by the far right billionaires to seize control of it
Ah yes, I remember how protest voting went in 2016
That wasn’t the reason why democrats lost in 2016.
Ah yes, I remember the dems nominating someone terrible who strongly deserves to be protested.
I remember the dems nominating a canidate who was hardly liked within the party and had no appeal without, and who was deeply concered in learching the party to the right… how about instead of assuming the dems are correct and the voters are wrong lets look at why the voters are disatisfied
It didn’t actually have any effect on 2016. Even if every single Jill Stien voter had gone to Clinton, she still would have needed to win over 50% of Gary Johnson’s voters to win.. Since it’s pretty unlikely that half of the Libertarian party’s votes were from disaffected leftists, no, the protest vote did not cost Hillary the election.
Voting for Jill Stein is only “taking a vote away” from Harris if you assume that the voter would’ve voted for Harris without Stein in the race.
That’s a big assumption and I don’t think there’s any good reason to make such an assumption.
Voting for a minor party in terms of the effect on the outcome is approximately equivalent to not voting.
In reality a not insignificant portion of them would probably vote for Trump to “own the libs” honestly.
A not insignificant portion of them will vote for Donald because they are MAGAs cosplaying about wanting a third party.
Let’s break down this bullshit: A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill Stein. The election clerks count ballots marked for Stein and report the vote totals that Stein received. A vote for Jill Stein is literally a vote for Jill Stein.
The statement that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump is, of course, metaphorical. It’s asserting that a vote for Stein is morally equivalent to a vote for Trump by the speaker’s moral reckoning. It’s a rhetorical shortcut. This shortcut rests on the notion that either the voter would have voted for Harris, or that it is a moral imperative to stop Trump above all else.
That’s a moral judgement call. Other people may judge differently. Flatly stating that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump so vehemently and absolutely elides any possibility of discourse and clearly tells the Stein voter that the speaker will not listen to or consider any of their views, or reasons to vote for Stein.
Fine, you believe that, but when has telling people more or less directly that you do not have any intention of considering their political beliefs won them over to your side? How is that a good tactic? If it worked, then why not employ it on Trump supporters? Go ahead, tell them that the party you support will ignore what they think and want, and demand they vote for your candidate.
If it doesn’t work on them, why should it work on Stein voters?
What a bunch of horseshit.
At best, third party voting has led to splitting votes and Woodrow Wilson winning despite having only 41% of the votes and at worst, it’s done absolutely nothing.
This is why a vote for third party is a vote for trump. Because no trump supporter is gonna vote third party. If you’re voting third party, it means one less vote for Harris which means less smaller chance of her winning which means higher chance of trump losing. Anyone saying otherwise is either dumb as fuck or is purposefully trying to split the votes to help trump win.
More accurately, a vote for Stein is a vote for whichever major party candidate the voter wouldn’t have voted for. In most cases, someone voting for the Green Party would vote for Harris, so it’s a vote for Trump.
That isn’t a moral judgement, it’s the facts of a two party system. -1 vote for Harris = +1 vote for Trump, no other votes matter.
And that’s not telling someone you don’t consider their political beliefs. Considering their political beliefs, they should vote for the major party candidate that they agree with the most, or they will effectively be voting for the one they agree with least.
That’s not the approach with Trump supporters because Trump is the major party candidate they agree with most, by definition. If anything one should try to get Trump supporters to vote 3rd party, Libertarian or for RFK or whoever.
Nailed it… Probably gonna catch a lot of down votes from lib shills… But fuck 'em, this is exactly right. Honestly, I think any of these bullshit articles that will clearly push people further away must be part of the plan to help Trump… Or are the libs really still just this stupid? Have learned absolutely nothing from all their time losing
Thanks! I knew what kind of replies I’d get, and did. Essentially, doubling-down on the electoral calculus argument, and not considering that other people have different motivations.
I am soooo happy to see how many people are disagreeing with the “a vote for third party is a vote for Trump!” bs that usually so approved here. This discussion thread has made my day! lol
Fucking thank you for saying it.
(and for saying it more eloquently than I have been able to.)
Right?! I need to use parts of his post for the endless people yelling at me for voting third party. lol
Or you could optionally pull your head out of your ass and stop the campaign
No, this is absolute bullshit.
Well, now that you put it that way…
Well said, not horse shit.
Not surprised to see your bullshit here.
Negativity is not the solution.
Axiomatic AF for your horsefly-ass to buzz in here calling this pile of excrement a delicious meal.
Maybe blame the disappointing candidate instead of voters hoping for a better life.
Great post!
For the editor and anyone else who does not understand math: people voting for Trump means Trump gets a vote.
A vote for Jill Stein means Trump does not get a vote.
Would you rather have someone vote third party or vote Trump?
The whole thing feels like an argument intended to push people away rather than rally support.
I’ve noticed a LOT of Lemmy’s seem to want to push people away rather than welcome or rally support when it comes to uncommitted voters or third-party voters… Very surprising to me.
It’s almost like we expect bad faith interactions from people trying to interact with bad faith.
Weird, right?!
I don’t know, because I’m not posting or interacting in bad faith. Just because some doesn’t share your views, doesn’t mean they are interacting in bad faith.
Werid, right?!
For industryStandard and whoever else may not understand FPTP: a vote for Kamala is a vote against Trump
A vote for Jill Stein is not a vote against Trump, and in fact hurts Kamala’s chances the same way a Republican voting for RFK hurts Trump’s chances
Would you rather have someone vote to stop Trump or throw away their vote?
Jill stein is running against Trump
Jill Stein is literally only running to steal Kamala votes to improve the chances of Trump winning
that’s not what her platform says
Breaking news; politicians lie to you
Cornell West 2024!
This is illogical, as it assumes someone voting for stein would vote for Harris, which isn’t the case.
In 2016 many Bernie Bro’s spite voted for Trump. Stein is leeching votes from Harris but also provides an alternative for what could have turned into spite voters.
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Exactly! I’ll share your downvotes…but you’re right.
If you guys think the spoiler effect isn’t real then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. I voted Green in 2000. Never again.
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The margins in the swing states legitimately come down to a couple thousand votes sometimes.
Don’t be stupid. Vote Kamala. If you hate for some reason fine, but it’s either that or…oh dear God.
The dems will never learn a lesson if they lose, they never have
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Maybe we should be asking Democrats why they aren’t trying harder to satisfy leftist voters instead?
Because leftist “voters” don’t vote.
Then Jill Stein shouldn’t have any impact right? Since according to you leftists aren’t voting anyway.
Lemmy really really hates when you frame the question like that. But good on ya, brother. You’re exactly right!
Let me put it this way: the kind of idiot voting for Stein is not a big enough demographic that they’re worth pissing off everyone else
If they would OTHERWISE vote dem maybe. But you clearly don’t give a shit and never considered that a possibility anyway. The dems will never find a candidate to satisfy everyone, never mind an otherwise irrelevant fringe of socialist college students
Bernie
You mean the guy who lost twice in the primaries?
If you’re too weak to beat Hilldog you’ll never win against the GOP
Judging from your tone, I think you’re right. Liberals would never have voted for Bernie.
Not trying to come off like a prick, but it is true most leftists I speak to really don’t understand how unpopular they are with most of the voting public. We live in a largely conservative country, and that includes a lot of liberals. Most people have a viscerally negative reaction to 90% of what comes out of the far left, never mind when it comes to voting
Yep. And dems screwed him over. I loved Bernie!
That’s BS. Extreme leftists are very unreliable voters: no party that actually has a chance at winning anything or running the country can live up to their wishlist agenda. They have a “98% agreement with me means you’re still my enemy” mentality, so the only candidates that appeal to them are the ones that know they won’t win: those are the only folks that can promise rainbows and unicorns all day long, and pass the unrealistic and fatally flawed morality tests that extreme Progressives demand.
Exactly!! Great question!
So practically speaking, there is no anti-genocide vote. There is no health care for everyone vote. There is no reduction in firearm caused deaths of children and teens vote. There is no anti corporate regulatory capture vote. These things just are not possible to achieve in America by voting.
Stein refused to call Putin a war criminal, so yes. There is no anti genocide vote.
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Accepting that you have limited power, choosing an issue, and acting locally has become a lost art. People would rather bitch about how it should be different.
Ahahaha spoken like a true Nazi watching Jews being boarded on a train.
Edit: I dont know what the hell is going on with this person. I am for damn sure not a nazi.
My guess is a hexbear or .ml user got bored (because they’re caustic and people block them quickly), so they made a .world account and are doing some low-skill trolling attempts.
It’s cute when you realize they’re probably piss poor living in squalor and doing this for trump bux.
