8 ms·

Why do you feel you have to vote for one of the two?

by xlxlxlx 10y ago

waterphone 10y ago
Because in the U.S. electoral system, voting outside of the two primary candidates selected by the system is effectively a wasted vote, and if there is one candidate you especially don't want, it is usually more effective to vote against them rather than for a candidate who cannot win under the system in place.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  I don't understand why you are being downvoted. You are pointing out the biggest issue with the current political system in the US. It's de-facto a two party system. We could fix this by making it either a parliamentary system or changing the voting method to approval voting. With approval voting we wouldn't even need a primary and neither Trump nor Hilary would be anywhere near the Whitehouse, since they both had negative approval ratings during the primary.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  A third-party vote is wasted in the context of the current election. It is definitely not wasted in terms of ballot access and public credibility for the subsequent elections. If you don't expect to die before the next election, it is never a waste to vote for the option closest to what you actually want. If you are always voting between your worst choice and your second-worst choice, it may be wiser to reconsider strategic voting altogether, and just pick what you want every time.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > A third-party vote is wasted in the context of the current election. It is definitely not wasted in terms of ballot access and public credibility for the subsequent elections. I think there is a pair of words reversed here: it is not definitely wasted in terms of ballot access and public credibility for subsequent elections (that is, it is possible for it to have some impact on those things), but its most likely also wasted for those purposes, so "definitely not" is not accurate.
Spoom 10y ago
I just had a small debate about this with some friends of mine. Let's imagine you live in a battleground state, and for the sake of argument, let's also assume that you're in one of the 48 states that are "winner take all" in that they assign all of their electoral college votes to the overall popular vote winner in that state. Say that state is Ohio. In 2012, the popular vote in Ohio was as follows (Source: Politico): B. Obama 50.1% M. Romney 48.2% G. Johnson 0.9% J. Stein 0.3% Let's say you're much more aligned with the Green Party platform. Why wouldn't you vote for Jill Stein? The answer is because your vote would likely otherwise go to Barack Obama, as the next closest candidate. So you're taking a vote away from Obama and putting it toward a candidate that has no chance of winning. If enough people do this, the second place candidate would win, in this case Mitt Romney. As a Green supporter, this would likely be the worst case scenario result. And yet, unintuitive as it is, your vote contributed to the candidate on the opposite side winning. "But if enough people voted Green, they would win," some cry. OK. Historically speaking, the Greens have averaged around this result... likely no more than 3% in any given state election. Do you really think that they're going to multiply their votes by several orders of magnitude by election day? This isn't the case in every electoral system; for example, in a Parliamentary system such as Canada's, you vote for your local MP, who runs on the basis of a riding, for which there are usually several within a city. The party that wins the most MP seats gets to form a government (PM, etc.) So the election becomes a much more local affair, rather than being a winner-take-all battle among the entire province, and results in practice in a multi-party system. Unfortunately, that's just not how US presidential elections work. The ridings are the size of an entire state, so your vote has less of an impact.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > As a Green supporter, this would likely be the worst case scenario result. Confined to a single election. I have a theory that lately we're seeing the longer-term consequences of limiting agency to large sections of the population.
- matwood 10y ago
  Great explanation that I didn't have time to type up myself below. Thanks!

Why do you feel you have to vote for one of the two?

by xlxlxlx 10y ago

Why do you feel you have to vote for one of the two?

Because in the U.S. electoral system, voting outside of the two primary candidates selected by the system is effectively a wasted vote, and if there is one candidate you especially don't want, it is usually more effective to vote against them rather than for a candidate who cannot win under the system in place.

ajmurmann 10y ago
I don't understand why you are being downvoted. You are pointing out the biggest issue with the current political system in the US. It's de-facto a two party system. We could fix this by making it either a parliamentary system or changing the voting method to approval voting. With approval voting we wouldn't even need a primary and neither Trump nor Hilary would be anywhere near the Whitehouse, since they both had negative approval ratings during the primary.
logfromblammo 10y ago
A third-party vote is wasted in the context of the current election. It is definitely not wasted in terms of ballot access and public credibility for the subsequent elections. If you don't expect to die before the next election, it is never a waste to vote for the option closest to what you actually want. If you are always voting between your worst choice and your second-worst choice, it may be wiser to reconsider strategic voting altogether, and just pick what you want every time.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > A third-party vote is wasted in the context of the current election. It is definitely not wasted in terms of ballot access and public credibility for the subsequent elections. I think there is a pair of words reversed here: it is not definitely wasted in terms of ballot access and public credibility for subsequent elections (that is, it is possible for it to have some impact on those things), but its most likely also wasted for those purposes, so "definitely not" is not accurate.

Spoom 10y ago

I just had a small debate about this with some friends of mine. Let's imagine you live in a battleground state, and for the sake of argument, let's also assume that you're in one of the 48 states that are "winner take all" in that they assign all of their electoral college votes to the overall popular vote winner in that state. Say that state is Ohio. In 2012, the popular vote in Ohio was as follows (Source: Politico): B. Obama 50.1% M. Romney 48.2% G. Johnson 0.9% J. Stein 0.3% Let's say you're much more aligned with the Green Party platform. Why wouldn't you vote for Jill Stein? The answer is because your vote would likely otherwise go to Barack Obama, as the next closest candidate. So you're taking a vote away from Obama and putting it toward a candidate that has no chance of winning. If enough people do this, the second place candidate would win, in this case Mitt Romney. As a Green supporter, this would likely be the worst case scenario result. And yet, unintuitive as it is, your vote contributed to the candidate on the opposite side winning. "But if enough people voted Green, they would win," some cry. OK. Historically speaking, the Greens have averaged around this result... likely no more than 3% in any given state election. Do you really think that they're going to multiply their votes by several orders of magnitude by election day? This isn't the case in every electoral system; for example, in a Parliamentary system such as Canada's, you vote for your local MP, who runs on the basis of a riding, for which there are usually several within a city. The party that wins the most MP seats gets to form a government (PM, etc.) So the election becomes a much more local affair, rather than being a winner-take-all battle among the entire province, and results in practice in a multi-party system. Unfortunately, that's just not how US presidential elections work. The ridings are the size of an entire state, so your vote has less of an impact.

humanrebar 10y ago
> As a Green supporter, this would likely be the worst case scenario result. Confined to a single election. I have a theory that lately we're seeing the longer-term consequences of limiting agency to large sections of the population.
matwood 10y ago
Great explanation that I didn't have time to type up myself below. Thanks!