Why, is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party or is it just because you think voting for the Dems to lose yet another election is the winning strategy?
is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party
No, we live in a first-past-the-post system where votes disappear into a black hole if they aren’t cast for the candidate with the plurality of votes, you smarmy fucking dipshit.
But there’s nothing inherent to the system that says the candidate with a plurality of votes has to be Democrat or Republican right? So what the fuck is the problem?
How did your Harris vote work out for you? How did your Clinton vote work out for you? What would have changed if you’d instead voted third party in either of these elections?
Do you honestly think that even if a Dem wins in 2028 that the Republicans will just disappear, “we defeated them!” and they just go away? The Republicans keep getting elected because of the Dems, their shit candidates, and their bullshit milquetoast policy that never helps anyone. What have they done to deserve our votes other than “not being Republican?” You know who else isn’t Republican? Third parties.
Mixed member proportional has regional list candidates that compensate parties that are underrepresented in seats compared to their popular vote within that region. Regardless of how your preferred candidate does, your vote affects the regional results. New Zealand uses this at a national level, and Germany and the UK both have it in some sub-national elections
Party list proportional has you vote for a party rather than a candidate, and each party gets a number of seats proportional to the number of votes. If your preferred party doesn’t win, they still get some seats. If they do win, your vote still gets them more seats. Absolutely loads of countries do this method.
In a single transferable vote system, you rank the candidates. If candidates get enough first-choice votes to meet a given threshold, they’re elected. Any surplus votes go towards the voter’s next choice, potentially electing them. If your first choice is the least-popular, they’re eliminated and your vote goes to your next choice. Either way, the vote isn’t wasted. Ireland and Australia use this.
is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party
No, they just choose not to. Fewer than 99% of legislative offices at the state and federal level are held by third party or independent politicians. No third party candidate for President has won a single Electoral College delegate since 1968, and Perot won almost 20% of the popular vote in 1992. In 2024 not one 3rd party was on the ballot in all 50 states, only 3 were on the ballot in more than 10 states. Did you know that when Bernie Sanders was first elected Senator in 2006, he actually won the Democratic primary but turned down the nomination to run as an Independent? So he already had the name recognition of the Democratic voters.
Unless and until your state has ranked choice or approval voting all you’re doing is lowering the threshold that the most popular candidate from the other end of the spectrum needs in order to win. The best strategy for change is to vote in the Democratic primaries (this is the important part, that people aren’t really doing today) and then for the Democratic nominee in the general while simultaneously working to get election reform on your ballot (and only 26 states allow direct ballot initiatives, the rest require the state legislature to put initiatives on the ballot for a direct vote by the public).
They choose not to because they think other people won’t and those other people don’t because they think that you won’t. It’s a big feedback loop.
From my perspective, the Dems are a shit party that’s more than happy to work with Republicans to destroy the country and its people, yet people still argue that they’re the “good guys” and that they deserve to win elections despite a Mt. Everest size pile of evidence to the contrary.
Furthermore they keep throwing elections in order to get Republicans elected so what the fuck is your vote even good for if you’re just voting for a losing (D) candidate? You might as well take the risk and vote 3rd party in this situation because even if you lose it’s still not going to change the outcome.
You say that primary votes are important, yet the DNC is more than happy to crush a popular candidate like Bernie if it’s not their chosen candidate. They put their thumb on the scale to sway the nomination toward the person they want. In 2024, we didn’t even get a primary because Biden went back on his word of only running one term and then dropped out to give us Harris. Again, what was your vote even good for here? Nothing.
All of you guys want to fix things yet staunchly refuse to try anything different while expecting things to get better by repeating the same failed strategy. They won’t. How many more elections will it take for people to realize that?
Why, is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party or is it just because you think voting for the Dems to lose yet another election is the winning strategy?
No, we live in a first-past-the-post system where votes disappear into a black hole if they aren’t cast for the candidate with the plurality of votes, you smarmy fucking dipshit.
But there’s nothing inherent to the system that says the candidate with a plurality of votes has to be Democrat or Republican right? So what the fuck is the problem?
How did your Harris vote work out for you? How did your Clinton vote work out for you? What would have changed if you’d instead voted third party in either of these elections?
Do you honestly think that even if a Dem wins in 2028 that the Republicans will just disappear, “we defeated them!” and they just go away? The Republicans keep getting elected because of the Dems, their shit candidates, and their bullshit milquetoast policy that never helps anyone. What have they done to deserve our votes other than “not being Republican?” You know who else isn’t Republican? Third parties.
That’s the same as all voting systems currently implemented around the world.
No, it isn’t.
Mixed member proportional has regional list candidates that compensate parties that are underrepresented in seats compared to their popular vote within that region. Regardless of how your preferred candidate does, your vote affects the regional results. New Zealand uses this at a national level, and Germany and the UK both have it in some sub-national elections
Party list proportional has you vote for a party rather than a candidate, and each party gets a number of seats proportional to the number of votes. If your preferred party doesn’t win, they still get some seats. If they do win, your vote still gets them more seats. Absolutely loads of countries do this method.
In a single transferable vote system, you rank the candidates. If candidates get enough first-choice votes to meet a given threshold, they’re elected. Any surplus votes go towards the voter’s next choice, potentially electing them. If your first choice is the least-popular, they’re eliminated and your vote goes to your next choice. Either way, the vote isn’t wasted. Ireland and Australia use this.
It’s a psychological problem at this point for why third parties never win, even if they overwhelmingly represent the interests of the masses.
No, they just choose not to. Fewer than 99% of legislative offices at the state and federal level are held by third party or independent politicians. No third party candidate for President has won a single Electoral College delegate since 1968, and Perot won almost 20% of the popular vote in 1992. In 2024 not one 3rd party was on the ballot in all 50 states, only 3 were on the ballot in more than 10 states. Did you know that when Bernie Sanders was first elected Senator in 2006, he actually won the Democratic primary but turned down the nomination to run as an Independent? So he already had the name recognition of the Democratic voters.
Unless and until your state has ranked choice or approval voting all you’re doing is lowering the threshold that the most popular candidate from the other end of the spectrum needs in order to win. The best strategy for change is to vote in the Democratic primaries (this is the important part, that people aren’t really doing today) and then for the Democratic nominee in the general while simultaneously working to get election reform on your ballot (and only 26 states allow direct ballot initiatives, the rest require the state legislature to put initiatives on the ballot for a direct vote by the public).
They choose not to because they think other people won’t and those other people don’t because they think that you won’t. It’s a big feedback loop.
From my perspective, the Dems are a shit party that’s more than happy to work with Republicans to destroy the country and its people, yet people still argue that they’re the “good guys” and that they deserve to win elections despite a Mt. Everest size pile of evidence to the contrary.
Furthermore they keep throwing elections in order to get Republicans elected so what the fuck is your vote even good for if you’re just voting for a losing (D) candidate? You might as well take the risk and vote 3rd party in this situation because even if you lose it’s still not going to change the outcome.
You say that primary votes are important, yet the DNC is more than happy to crush a popular candidate like Bernie if it’s not their chosen candidate. They put their thumb on the scale to sway the nomination toward the person they want. In 2024, we didn’t even get a primary because Biden went back on his word of only running one term and then dropped out to give us Harris. Again, what was your vote even good for here? Nothing.
All of you guys want to fix things yet staunchly refuse to try anything different while expecting things to get better by repeating the same failed strategy. They won’t. How many more elections will it take for people to realize that?