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I can't do that. I can't vote for someone that I feel is a terrible choice that will have serious ramifications without actually believing in them. I won't send

I can't do that. I can't vote for someone that I feel is a terrible choice that will have serious ramifications without actually believing in them. I won't send the message that I want a candidate unless I actually want them. I'm not voting against a candidate, i'm voting for one. And if there is nobody that represents me, i'm not going to vote. I'm not going to show approval for one of the candidates that I don't actually support, and i'm not going to feel like it's "my fault" when one of them wins.

jhugg 10y ago
Hypothetical: Candidate A is a genuine sociopath and serial killer. Candidate B was indicted for tax-fraud, but got off for BS reasons. Candidate C runs a non-profit and loves kittens, but has no chance in hell of winning. I don't want to vote for A or B. I want to vote for C. But if by not voting for B, A gets elected, that's partly on me. This isn't our exact situation, but if you genuinely believe one plausible candidate is better than the other (even if still bad) and you vote 3rd party, then you're wasting your vote. Whether Gary Johnson gets 5% or 12% of the vote isn't going to fix the two party system. If you want to do that, you need to start at the local and state levels. Just running a candidate for president every four years is for publicity and messaging, not because you're ever going to win.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  I don't see it that way. It's not on me that 5X% of the people who voted voted for the serial killer. That's on them. If that is who the population wants, then that is what they will get. My vote is the voice I get in democracy. I'm not going to use it to vote in someone I don't agree with on most issues, just because the other guy is worse. Me withholding that voice (or using it to vote for someone I know won't win, but who i genuinely believe in) is the way that I can be heard. It's my way of telling future politicians that if they support X (or something close to X) that they can get a portion of those who voted for C last election. It's my way of sending a message that the next candidate shouldn't be a serial killer AND shouldn't be involved in tax fraud. It's my call for someone who better represents me and my beliefs.
  - jhugg 10y ago
    As I said earlier, in 2000 people voted for Nader and its a pretty direct path to a trillion dollar war that cost thousands of American lives, cost hundreds of thousands of non-American lives, and led semi-directly to ISIS. I don't blame Nader voters, because they didn't realize what could happen. Voters in 2016 have no such excuse.
    - Klathmon 10y ago
      I don't blame Nader voters either, because they didn't cause any of that, just like how they didn't contribute to Kim Jong-un being in the position he is. Voters in 2016 are the same. Not liking a candidate doesn't mean I should feel any obligation to vote for their "main opponent". I'm voting for who I feel represents myself and my beliefs best, and if the candidate I dislike ends up winning, that's on the ones who voted for him.
    - civilian 10y ago
      The long-term solution to this, of course, is the Alternative Vote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
    - lhc- 10y ago
      Why can't we blame the democratic candidate, who was so unappealing to progressive voters that they preferred Nader? I would suggest it is the fault of that candidate (and his party) that they lost the election. No one is entitled to anyone else's votes, regardless of how bad the competition is. Voters have agency, and have no compulsion to vote for one specific candidate to avoid another evil one (that specific candidate still must earn those votes).
      - NoGravitas 10y ago
        Yep. It's a myth that Nader lost Gore the election. In Florida, 10x as many registered Democrats voted for Bush as voted for Nader. The main argument for voting for a guaranteed-to-lose third-party candidate is that it gives the parties a clear, quantitative signal about how many voters their base-unfriendly policies are losing them. And also the down-ticket races, of course, though many of them are so gerrymandered here that your votes don't matter in them, either.
- pyre 10y ago
  If you vote for Candidate B just so that Candidate A doesn't get into office does that make me culpable for all of the bad things that Candidate B does in office? Do I "lose my right" to complain about Candidate B's bad choices in the same way that it's claimed I lose my right to complain about Candidate A being a sociopath when they get elected if I don't "vote against" them?
  - jhugg 10y ago
    I don't think so, no. You always have the right to complain that both choices suck and the two party system hurts our democracy. But the best way to do that is not to vote for someone else; a symbolic, but possibly harmful act. Petition the government to support rank voting (the best solution to this issue). Vote for a third-party candidate in a local election that they might win. Run for local (or national) office.
artimaeis 10y ago
I'm kind of curious - do you honestly feel like there is actually 0 difference between which way this election goes? Assume for a moment that 3rd party candidates won't win. What makes you think that the policies and backgrounds for both of these candidates will have the same effect on our country either way?
- Klathmon 10y ago
  I don't think that they will have the same effect at all, but I can't in good conscience put my "stamp of approval" on either of them. By voting for a candidate, i'm adding to the number of people that supported them. I'm adding to the number that can be looked at later to see what the american population supports. I'm adding to the percentages that will alter what future politicians will base their platforms on. I can't do that when I don't believe in the vast majority of what either of their platforms are based on. So I'm not going to vote for either of them.
  - jhugg 10y ago
    Don't think of it as a stamp of approval. It's not. There's no public record. No one is going to say "Klathmon voted for the lesser of two evils; look what a compromised person he is!" Vote the vote that has the best chance of improving (or screwing up less in this case) whatever you care about.
    - Klathmon 10y ago
      It is though. It may not be linkable to myself as a person, but the numbers are still there, and they still represent the voting public. Next election, politicians look at past elections. They look at what percentages each candidate got, they analyze that based on each platform, the numbers, the demographics of each state and what they voted for. By voting for a candidate, i'm adding to the number of people that voted for them. I'm becoming part of that statistic. So i'm going to use that statistic to my advantage to get my voice heard. I'm going to vote for someone I actually believe in, even if they won't win. Then next time, at least those numbers are on the table. Maybe the next candidate will consider that by supporting "platform Y" they can get a percentage of those votes, and maybe i'll eventually have someone I support.
int_19h 10y ago
> I'm not voting against a candidate, i'm voting for one. You shouldn't attach too much to the meaning of words. People give way too much emotional weight to the difference between "voting for" and "voting against", when the actual math behind the hood of the political system may well make them indistinguishable - and it's the math that matters. By all means, vote third party if you believe this advances your goals! But however you vote, do so on the basis of objective math, not subjective meanings of words, or as a symbolic gesture. And in a FPTP system, the math is pretty clear - a vote for one is automatically a vote against all others - as are the consequences. If you believe that your goals are achievable, and their benefits will more than compensate the negative effect of other consequences, then it's justified. As a symbolic flipping of the middle finger, not so much.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  A better system: vote for as many as you like. Then you can vote for your conscience, PLUS an acceptable mainstream candidate. And if the 'moral' choice has a broad enough base they could win.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  This is bigger than just the math of this election. Our votes will be analyzed, the platforms of the candidates will be analyzed, just because this election is lost, does not mean that votes for the losers were entirely worthless. By voting for who I actually want and not voting defensively when I don't support any of the major candidates, I am making my voice heard. Maybe not for this election, maybe not for the next, but my hope is that eventually the main 2 parties will take notice and adopt some of the policies from "lesser" candidates that end up with a non-profit amount of votes.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Consider a hypothetical situation where the vote is between two major candidates, one of which is utterly corrupt, but can be relied upon to at least preserve the existing system, while the other one is running on a platform that is likely to preclude fair elections in the future altogether (in some countries, this is a real thing - when Russia voted Putin in back in 2000, that was exactly the choice on the table). Now, if your long-term strategy is to keep voting against both to draw attention, you'd have to treat such an election as a special case, because if the "greater evil" wins, you cannot continue with your strategy in the next cycle at all. So it would be in your self-interest to vote for the "lesser evil". This case is fairly clear, because the advantages and disadvantages are easy to compute, being on the same scale (affecting the power of your vote). But the same arithmetic applies to issues on different scales, too, so long as you have some sort of preferential ranking for those scales, so that you can unify them. For example, you might want your vote to have more power, but you might also want to ensure that there's no repeat of something like the Japanese-American internment. If the latter is more important for you than the former, and it comes up as an issue in one particular election, it would be more important to vote strategically in a way to prevent it, even if it doesn't advance (and possibly sets back) your other goal. Ranking the scales is subjective, of course. I'm not saying that this election is necessarily like that from your perspective. But I urge you to at least consider that possibility - tally up all the effects of either major candidate winning, and see how that stacks up against the beneficial effects of adopting some of the policies of "lesser" candidates in distant future, as well as probability of that adoption.

jhugg 10y ago

Hypothetical: Candidate A is a genuine sociopath and serial killer. Candidate B was indicted for tax-fraud, but got off for BS reasons. Candidate C runs a non-profit and loves kittens, but has no chance in hell of winning. I don't want to vote for A or B. I want to vote for C. But if by not voting for B, A gets elected, that's partly on me. This isn't our exact situation, but if you genuinely believe one plausible candidate is better than the other (even if still bad) and you vote 3rd party, then you're wasting your vote. Whether Gary Johnson gets 5% or 12% of the vote isn't going to fix the two party system. If you want to do that, you need to start at the local and state levels. Just running a candidate for president every four years is for publicity and messaging, not because you're ever going to win.

Klathmon 10y ago
I don't see it that way. It's not on me that 5X% of the people who voted voted for the serial killer. That's on them. If that is who the population wants, then that is what they will get. My vote is the voice I get in democracy. I'm not going to use it to vote in someone I don't agree with on most issues, just because the other guy is worse. Me withholding that voice (or using it to vote for someone I know won't win, but who i genuinely believe in) is the way that I can be heard. It's my way of telling future politicians that if they support X (or something close to X) that they can get a portion of those who voted for C last election. It's my way of sending a message that the next candidate shouldn't be a serial killer AND shouldn't be involved in tax fraud. It's my call for someone who better represents me and my beliefs.
- jhugg 10y ago
  As I said earlier, in 2000 people voted for Nader and its a pretty direct path to a trillion dollar war that cost thousands of American lives, cost hundreds of thousands of non-American lives, and led semi-directly to ISIS. I don't blame Nader voters, because they didn't realize what could happen. Voters in 2016 have no such excuse.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    I don't blame Nader voters either, because they didn't cause any of that, just like how they didn't contribute to Kim Jong-un being in the position he is. Voters in 2016 are the same. Not liking a candidate doesn't mean I should feel any obligation to vote for their "main opponent". I'm voting for who I feel represents myself and my beliefs best, and if the candidate I dislike ends up winning, that's on the ones who voted for him.
  - civilian 10y ago
    The long-term solution to this, of course, is the Alternative Vote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
  - lhc- 10y ago
    Why can't we blame the democratic candidate, who was so unappealing to progressive voters that they preferred Nader? I would suggest it is the fault of that candidate (and his party) that they lost the election. No one is entitled to anyone else's votes, regardless of how bad the competition is. Voters have agency, and have no compulsion to vote for one specific candidate to avoid another evil one (that specific candidate still must earn those votes).
    - NoGravitas 10y ago
      Yep. It's a myth that Nader lost Gore the election. In Florida, 10x as many registered Democrats voted for Bush as voted for Nader. The main argument for voting for a guaranteed-to-lose third-party candidate is that it gives the parties a clear, quantitative signal about how many voters their base-unfriendly policies are losing them. And also the down-ticket races, of course, though many of them are so gerrymandered here that your votes don't matter in them, either.
pyre 10y ago
If you vote for Candidate B just so that Candidate A doesn't get into office does that make me culpable for all of the bad things that Candidate B does in office? Do I "lose my right" to complain about Candidate B's bad choices in the same way that it's claimed I lose my right to complain about Candidate A being a sociopath when they get elected if I don't "vote against" them?
- jhugg 10y ago
  I don't think so, no. You always have the right to complain that both choices suck and the two party system hurts our democracy. But the best way to do that is not to vote for someone else; a symbolic, but possibly harmful act. Petition the government to support rank voting (the best solution to this issue). Vote for a third-party candidate in a local election that they might win. Run for local (or national) office.

artimaeis 10y ago

I'm kind of curious - do you honestly feel like there is actually 0 difference between which way this election goes? Assume for a moment that 3rd party candidates won't win. What makes you think that the policies and backgrounds for both of these candidates will have the same effect on our country either way?

Klathmon 10y ago
I don't think that they will have the same effect at all, but I can't in good conscience put my "stamp of approval" on either of them. By voting for a candidate, i'm adding to the number of people that supported them. I'm adding to the number that can be looked at later to see what the american population supports. I'm adding to the percentages that will alter what future politicians will base their platforms on. I can't do that when I don't believe in the vast majority of what either of their platforms are based on. So I'm not going to vote for either of them.
- jhugg 10y ago
  Don't think of it as a stamp of approval. It's not. There's no public record. No one is going to say "Klathmon voted for the lesser of two evils; look what a compromised person he is!" Vote the vote that has the best chance of improving (or screwing up less in this case) whatever you care about.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    It is though. It may not be linkable to myself as a person, but the numbers are still there, and they still represent the voting public. Next election, politicians look at past elections. They look at what percentages each candidate got, they analyze that based on each platform, the numbers, the demographics of each state and what they voted for. By voting for a candidate, i'm adding to the number of people that voted for them. I'm becoming part of that statistic. So i'm going to use that statistic to my advantage to get my voice heard. I'm going to vote for someone I actually believe in, even if they won't win. Then next time, at least those numbers are on the table. Maybe the next candidate will consider that by supporting "platform Y" they can get a percentage of those votes, and maybe i'll eventually have someone I support.

int_19h 10y ago

> I'm not voting against a candidate, i'm voting for one. You shouldn't attach too much to the meaning of words. People give way too much emotional weight to the difference between "voting for" and "voting against", when the actual math behind the hood of the political system may well make them indistinguishable - and it's the math that matters. By all means, vote third party if you believe this advances your goals! But however you vote, do so on the basis of objective math, not subjective meanings of words, or as a symbolic gesture. And in a FPTP system, the math is pretty clear - a vote for one is automatically a vote against all others - as are the consequences. If you believe that your goals are achievable, and their benefits will more than compensate the negative effect of other consequences, then it's justified. As a symbolic flipping of the middle finger, not so much.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
A better system: vote for as many as you like. Then you can vote for your conscience, PLUS an acceptable mainstream candidate. And if the 'moral' choice has a broad enough base they could win.
Klathmon 10y ago
This is bigger than just the math of this election. Our votes will be analyzed, the platforms of the candidates will be analyzed, just because this election is lost, does not mean that votes for the losers were entirely worthless. By voting for who I actually want and not voting defensively when I don't support any of the major candidates, I am making my voice heard. Maybe not for this election, maybe not for the next, but my hope is that eventually the main 2 parties will take notice and adopt some of the policies from "lesser" candidates that end up with a non-profit amount of votes.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Consider a hypothetical situation where the vote is between two major candidates, one of which is utterly corrupt, but can be relied upon to at least preserve the existing system, while the other one is running on a platform that is likely to preclude fair elections in the future altogether (in some countries, this is a real thing - when Russia voted Putin in back in 2000, that was exactly the choice on the table). Now, if your long-term strategy is to keep voting against both to draw attention, you'd have to treat such an election as a special case, because if the "greater evil" wins, you cannot continue with your strategy in the next cycle at all. So it would be in your self-interest to vote for the "lesser evil". This case is fairly clear, because the advantages and disadvantages are easy to compute, being on the same scale (affecting the power of your vote). But the same arithmetic applies to issues on different scales, too, so long as you have some sort of preferential ranking for those scales, so that you can unify them. For example, you might want your vote to have more power, but you might also want to ensure that there's no repeat of something like the Japanese-American internment. If the latter is more important for you than the former, and it comes up as an issue in one particular election, it would be more important to vote strategically in a way to prevent it, even if it doesn't advance (and possibly sets back) your other goal. Ranking the scales is subjective, of course. I'm not saying that this election is necessarily like that from your perspective. But I urge you to at least consider that possibility - tally up all the effects of either major candidate winning, and see how that stacks up against the beneficial effects of adopting some of the policies of "lesser" candidates in distant future, as well as probability of that adoption.