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Voting is not the only way that people let their preferences be known. If the President owed a huge debt to Stein supporters, they'd be aware of it. Ranked choi

Voting is not the only way that people let their preferences be known. If the President owed a huge debt to Stein supporters, they'd be aware of it. Ranked choice voting could make that "official" in some sense, but it's not a secret now. All politicians put a lot of effort into trying to figure out what positions will appeal to voters, and assemble a coalition large enough to eke out a majority. It won't be as simple as "adding policy positions from Candidate X and gain their voters". Every policy position change attracts some people and loses others. People seem to hope that an alternative voting system will turn up some massive groundswell of support for their specific policy, that is somehow being ignored solely because of first-past-the-post voting. That's simply not the case. Stein's policies just aren't all that popular. Maybe they're more popular than you might infer from the vote total, but that's not what a vote is for. A vote's job is to determine a sole winner. For making finer distinctions, there are many better tools -- focus groups, polling, reading social media -- and they do indeed do that.

defrost 2y ago
> Stein's policies just aren't all that popular. I don't care. I'm in Australia with preferential voting refuting the GP comments position. > All politicians put a lot of effort into trying to figure out what positions will appeal to voters Sure. Phone polls that now (in the US) fewer than 1% respond to and have huge selection bias issues. Internet polls that are riddled with issues. etc. > A vote's job is to determine a sole winner. In the US. Within an antiquated electoral system that has iteratively doom spiraled into a two party quagmire despite the founders express dislike of party politics. That's exactly the kind of blinkered view expected of a First Past the Post voter raised with American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. Our system was established in 1900 - it has its issues, sure, but it was designed with in intent as a "Washminster system" that looked at both the UK and US systems and attempted to take the best of both and iron out some of the glaring issues with each. > Voting is not the only way that people let their preferences be known. But it's certainly the most on record, definitive, and breaks up Two Party non representative majority blocks, forces deals with smaller but still representative blocks, etc.
aebtebeten 2y ago
When I was young, there was overlap between the D right wing and the R left wing. That overlap is gone, and I believe FPTP (and its corollary, the gerrymander) has much to do with it. Now I'm watching the train wreck safely, from a proportional representation polity.
- defrost 2y ago
  Have a cone while you wait: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885265 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCoRoqGz5so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCoRoqGz5so
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    I'm not waiting so much as I am following Dijkstra's dictum that doctors are not expected to suffer themselves from the diseases* they diagnose. wrt https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885514 compare a previous swap: https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/pierce.htm#:~:text=The%20democracy%20of,two%20drunken%20men%2e https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/pierce... ! * I hear the DPRK would give their POWs chocolate bars if they wrote politically correct essays; similarly when I was young I used to get "gold stars" for writing essays about how obviously N=2 parties must be better than, not only N=1, but also N>=3. (thus far we've been able to avoid the major objection in that thread, by keeping a nearly continuous "grand coalition" government: proportional all the way up) [we're also helped because political boundaries are not arbitrarily redrawn, but tend to be based on centuries-to-millennia-old borders; I don't know what they do in the cities, but it's undoubtedly better than Austin TX: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/new-district-maps-texas-comparison/269-5194e901-fd3b-452b-b3b1-86cbdfae6a6e https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/new-district-maps... ]
    - defrost 2y ago
      That singular penperson A. Lincoln writes a wonderful ancedote and should consider a career in politics. In the annals of N>=3, one of my favourite truple slogans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Democrats#:~:text=At%20a%20Melbourne%20media%20conference,lived%20slogan%20for%20the%20Democrats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Democrats#:~:text=A.... Third and fourth parties that can't spoil are a blessing in electoral systems, they force deals in the direction of real people and increase representation.

defrost 2y ago

> Stein's policies just aren't all that popular. I don't care. I'm in Australia with preferential voting refuting the GP comments position. > All politicians put a lot of effort into trying to figure out what positions will appeal to voters Sure. Phone polls that now (in the US) fewer than 1% respond to and have huge selection bias issues. Internet polls that are riddled with issues. etc. > A vote's job is to determine a sole winner. In the US. Within an antiquated electoral system that has iteratively doom spiraled into a two party quagmire despite the founders express dislike of party politics. That's exactly the kind of blinkered view expected of a First Past the Post voter raised with American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. Our system was established in 1900 - it has its issues, sure, but it was designed with in intent as a "Washminster system" that looked at both the UK and US systems and attempted to take the best of both and iron out some of the glaring issues with each. > Voting is not the only way that people let their preferences be known. But it's certainly the most on record, definitive, and breaks up Two Party non representative majority blocks, forces deals with smaller but still representative blocks, etc.

aebtebeten 2y ago

When I was young, there was overlap between the D right wing and the R left wing. That overlap is gone, and I believe FPTP (and its corollary, the gerrymander) has much to do with it. Now I'm watching the train wreck safely, from a proportional representation polity.

defrost 2y ago
Have a cone while you wait: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885265 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCoRoqGz5so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCoRoqGz5so
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  I'm not waiting so much as I am following Dijkstra's dictum that doctors are not expected to suffer themselves from the diseases* they diagnose. wrt https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885514 compare a previous swap: https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/pierce.htm#:~:text=The%20democracy%20of,two%20drunken%20men%2e https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/pierce... ! * I hear the DPRK would give their POWs chocolate bars if they wrote politically correct essays; similarly when I was young I used to get "gold stars" for writing essays about how obviously N=2 parties must be better than, not only N=1, but also N>=3. (thus far we've been able to avoid the major objection in that thread, by keeping a nearly continuous "grand coalition" government: proportional all the way up) [we're also helped because political boundaries are not arbitrarily redrawn, but tend to be based on centuries-to-millennia-old borders; I don't know what they do in the cities, but it's undoubtedly better than Austin TX: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/new-district-maps-texas-comparison/269-5194e901-fd3b-452b-b3b1-86cbdfae6a6e https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/new-district-maps... ]
  - defrost 2y ago
    That singular penperson A. Lincoln writes a wonderful ancedote and should consider a career in politics. In the annals of N>=3, one of my favourite truple slogans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Democrats#:~:text=At%20a%20Melbourne%20media%20conference,lived%20slogan%20for%20the%20Democrats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Democrats#:~:text=A.... Third and fourth parties that can't spoil are a blessing in electoral systems, they force deals in the direction of real people and increase representation.