4 ms·

I looked into third parties this year, and even if you know the party you voted for won't win, it isn't necessarily throwing your vote away. It turns out that i

by dx87 6y ago

I looked into third parties this year, and even if you know the party you voted for won't win, it isn't necessarily throwing your vote away. It turns out that if a party gets at least 5% of the popular vote, they are eligible to receive millions of dollars from the government to assist their campaign during the next election.

Shared404 6y ago
That is actually some incredibly useful info. Thanks for pointing that out.
vmception 6y ago
You consider that a good enough incentive? That's like a rationalization, a search for a silver lining because you made the wrong choice. Long term investments are short term investments gone wrong.
bluejekyll 6y ago
Because most states (except Maine) use first-past-the post polling, this really only takes votes away from one of the major parties, and most likely from the more moderate one you might prefer. The GP is right, until RCV exists (or other plural voting option) it’s just throwing away your vote, or worse helping the more extreme candidate you don’t like. Edit: to be clear, first work inside your state to pass some form of plural voting, then support 3rd party candidates.
floren 6y ago
That's a great point, and "You shouldn't vote third-party, because nobody votes third-party" is a terrible argument anyway.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  A better argument is that you shouldn't vote third-party because first-past-the-post voting severely penalizes it: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
- MereInterest 6y ago
  How about "You shouldn't vote third-party, because coordination problems are extremely difficult with a large number of players." ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_game
masklinn 6y ago
> It turns out that if a party gets at least 5% of the popular vote, they are eligible to receive millions of dollars from the government to assist their campaign during the next election. 1. 5% is a very high bar in the US, going back to the 1900 election it happened to 6 people in 6 elections: Taft (as the incumbent!) and Debs in 1912, La Follette in 1932, Wallace in 1968, Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. It's basically a generational event. And even Perot couldn't convert two third-places into anything lasting, what's the point of getting matching funds for the next election if you're only going to waste the money again except worse? 2. the candidate must agree to very strict spending limits, putting them at a large disadvantage for actually achieving their 5%; worse, while the federal limit is rather high it's really an expenditure limit per state based entirely on the state's population, no focusing on states where you have a chance to make an impact 3. it's only matching funds, it's not a magic purse of money 4. no matter how you slice it, the spoiler effect is, well, in effect That 5% line would be way more useful and relevant if you guys fixed your presidential election system first, both the voting system, and everything that's around (the funding, the PACs, etc…). Third-party candidates are not viable under FPTP, third-party candidates are even less viable when the main two candidate literally spend hundreds of millions.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > 5% is a very high bar in the US, going back to the 1900 election it happened to 6 people in 6 elections: I don't disagree with what you have to say, but this statistic probably has the opposite effect of what you intended. It's telling me that it happened in 20% of elections since 1900. Most hard core third party voters would be pleasantly surprised to hear this ;-)
  - masklinn 6y ago
    > It's telling me that it happened in 20% of elections since 1900. Most hard core third party voters would be pleasantly surprised to hear this ;-) Then they would, objectively speaking, be complete idiots. It happens literally every major elections in other countries with better electoral systems. For instance in NZ's 53rd General Election which just concluded, despite Labour functionally sweeping the election, four parties exceeded 5% of the vote. And while I'm not going to say that it happens every time, it's not an abnormal result at all for the country. Furthermore, it misses the point I was underlying, which is that this only assists in funding the next election, which is only useful if you can transform this into a long-standing regular position, which has never happened. Getting 5% on an election doesn't in and of itself give you anything in the US.
thewebcount 6y ago
> It turns out that if a party gets at least 5% of the popular vote, they are eligible to receive millions of dollars from the government to assist their campaign during the next election. And yet, in 200+ years of elections, how many times has this happened? In my ~50 year lifetime there have only been 3 viable third party candidates for President. Of those, John Anderson got 6%, Ross Perot got ~19%, and Ralph Nader got 2.4%. If you're under 40, you've probably never heard of John Anderson. He was a Republican who turned independent to run against Reagan in 1980, so no party affiliation. Perot didn't have a party and dropped out of the race early, only to enter it again a few weeks before the election. Nader ran as a Green candidate. So at least on the Presidential stage, those rules don't seem like they help any party in reality. In very rare cases they help a particular candidate with 1 election, but even at Perot's almost 20%, there was no chance he could win. It probably makes much more sense to vote 3rd party locally until such a time as your favored party becomes big enough to actually matter in Federal elections. But for races like President, we're stuck with our crappy system until we can get the political will to change to not be first past the post. I really wish we could do that.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > It probably makes much more sense to vote 3rd party locally until such a time as your favored party becomes big enough to actually matter in Federal elections. In practice it often works the other way round: Left leaning Democrats or right leaning Republicans are easier to find at a local level, obviating the need for 3rd party candidates. It just gets rarer and rarer as you get to the president, and that's why at that level a lot of people vote 3rd party. As an example, lots of people who support single-payer health care have been elected amongst the Democrats.

by dx87 6y ago

Shared404 6y ago

That is actually some incredibly useful info. Thanks for pointing that out.

vmception 6y ago

You consider that a good enough incentive? That's like a rationalization, a search for a silver lining because you made the wrong choice. Long term investments are short term investments gone wrong.

bluejekyll 6y ago

Because most states (except Maine) use first-past-the post polling, this really only takes votes away from one of the major parties, and most likely from the more moderate one you might prefer. The GP is right, until RCV exists (or other plural voting option) it’s just throwing away your vote, or worse helping the more extreme candidate you don’t like. Edit: to be clear, first work inside your state to pass some form of plural voting, then support 3rd party candidates.

floren 6y ago

That's a great point, and "You shouldn't vote third-party, because nobody votes third-party" is a terrible argument anyway.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
A better argument is that you shouldn't vote third-party because first-past-the-post voting severely penalizes it: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
MereInterest 6y ago
How about "You shouldn't vote third-party, because coordination problems are extremely difficult with a large number of players." ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_game

masklinn 6y ago

> It turns out that if a party gets at least 5% of the popular vote, they are eligible to receive millions of dollars from the government to assist their campaign during the next election. 1. 5% is a very high bar in the US, going back to the 1900 election it happened to 6 people in 6 elections: Taft (as the incumbent!) and Debs in 1912, La Follette in 1932, Wallace in 1968, Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. It's basically a generational event. And even Perot couldn't convert two third-places into anything lasting, what's the point of getting matching funds for the next election if you're only going to waste the money again except worse? 2. the candidate must agree to very strict spending limits, putting them at a large disadvantage for actually achieving their 5%; worse, while the federal limit is rather high it's really an expenditure limit per state based entirely on the state's population, no focusing on states where you have a chance to make an impact 3. it's only matching funds, it's not a magic purse of money 4. no matter how you slice it, the spoiler effect is, well, in effect That 5% line would be way more useful and relevant if you guys fixed your presidential election system first, both the voting system, and everything that's around (the funding, the PACs, etc…). Third-party candidates are not viable under FPTP, third-party candidates are even less viable when the main two candidate literally spend hundreds of millions.

BeetleB 6y ago
> 5% is a very high bar in the US, going back to the 1900 election it happened to 6 people in 6 elections: I don't disagree with what you have to say, but this statistic probably has the opposite effect of what you intended. It's telling me that it happened in 20% of elections since 1900. Most hard core third party voters would be pleasantly surprised to hear this ;-)
- masklinn 6y ago
  > It's telling me that it happened in 20% of elections since 1900. Most hard core third party voters would be pleasantly surprised to hear this ;-) Then they would, objectively speaking, be complete idiots. It happens literally every major elections in other countries with better electoral systems. For instance in NZ's 53rd General Election which just concluded, despite Labour functionally sweeping the election, four parties exceeded 5% of the vote. And while I'm not going to say that it happens every time, it's not an abnormal result at all for the country. Furthermore, it misses the point I was underlying, which is that this only assists in funding the next election, which is only useful if you can transform this into a long-standing regular position, which has never happened. Getting 5% on an election doesn't in and of itself give you anything in the US.

thewebcount 6y ago

> It turns out that if a party gets at least 5% of the popular vote, they are eligible to receive millions of dollars from the government to assist their campaign during the next election. And yet, in 200+ years of elections, how many times has this happened? In my ~50 year lifetime there have only been 3 viable third party candidates for President. Of those, John Anderson got 6%, Ross Perot got ~19%, and Ralph Nader got 2.4%. If you're under 40, you've probably never heard of John Anderson. He was a Republican who turned independent to run against Reagan in 1980, so no party affiliation. Perot didn't have a party and dropped out of the race early, only to enter it again a few weeks before the election. Nader ran as a Green candidate. So at least on the Presidential stage, those rules don't seem like they help any party in reality. In very rare cases they help a particular candidate with 1 election, but even at Perot's almost 20%, there was no chance he could win. It probably makes much more sense to vote 3rd party locally until such a time as your favored party becomes big enough to actually matter in Federal elections. But for races like President, we're stuck with our crappy system until we can get the political will to change to not be first past the post. I really wish we could do that.

BeetleB 6y ago
> It probably makes much more sense to vote 3rd party locally until such a time as your favored party becomes big enough to actually matter in Federal elections. In practice it often works the other way round: Left leaning Democrats or right leaning Republicans are easier to find at a local level, obviating the need for 3rd party candidates. It just gets rarer and rarer as you get to the president, and that's why at that level a lot of people vote 3rd party. As an example, lots of people who support single-payer health care have been elected amongst the Democrats.