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Why no vote equals a vote for Trump instead of the contrary a vote for Harris?
You are assuming that all people not voting or voting other party would vote for Harris, but this is probably not true.
Many of those people would vote for Trump if forced. Thus it would be better for the Harris campaign that they stayed home or keep voting for the Tea Party or some other third right wing party without representation.
Correct. These statements are always made from a position that the speaker assumes the votes Belong To Their Candidate. The fact remains that not voting for the orange hitler is still not a vote for orange hitler. Voting 3rd party is also not a vote for orange hitler.
No one may assume that another citizen's vote belongs to any candidate. Their vote belongs to them alone, to vote or not as they choose.
Having stated the facts of how that works, now I recommend that we all vote for Harris and against orange hitler.
In our democracy, we have a first-past-the-post system. This means only two parties, Democrats and Republicans, have any chance at winning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
The electoral college favors Republicans. Specifically it favors low population areas, which tend to vote Republican. High population centers tend to vote Democrat. Democrats need more votes to overcome this advantage.
A majority of people agree with Democrats on issues. If everyone voted, Democrats would win in a landslide.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/07/politics/democratic-positions-majority/index.html
Not voting and third party votes detracts from votes that could have gone to Democrats.
It basically boils down to the same thing as the complaint "software piracy is theft" when talking about sales (or votes) that likely wouldn't have happened anyway.
This "every third party vote is a vote for $republican_candidate" noise comes around every four years like clockwork. Third party votes are not just protest votes from wayward Democrats.
Just like 3rd party candidates come around every 4 years
We need ranked choice voting, so you can vote for who you actually support without throwing your vote away.
Which will never happen because the Republicans are dead set on never changing any system in any way that's not directly in their benefit and no one else's. Until that moment arrives, which is never, the only option is to pick your particular flavour of straight-up fascism (Republicans these days) or anything else (Democrats) in the party primaries.
Don't fool yourself. The DNC also doesn't want ranked choice voting. Neither party wants any competition. The entire system is built to make it virtually impossible for a third party candidate to win. Unless they actually hit 270+, even if they were a clear majority winner, they wouldn't be elected.
The local Democratic party literally opposes the ranked choice voting bill on my local ballot. So do the Republicans surprise surprise. They agreed on something! Bipartisanship!
One of the few advantages of our splintered system of states is that voting is done on a state level. We can implement ranked-choice voting in states where Republicans are weak, and in doing so, allow states that aren't filled with fascists to choose between multiple non-fascist ideologies, instead of just fascists and 'whoever is left'.
The dnc also doesn't want ranked choice voting. Even worse, if you managed to pass rcv in a heavily left state, it would only end up muddling up the waters on votes in house and senate, where the amount of Republicans would stay the same, but democrats and third parties would be sharing what used to be just democrats.
I like coalitions.
Ever since reading about some strange properties of RCV -- which ended up being displayed in Alaska's first election using it and caused it to be repealed in Vermont -- I've been a bit suspect of it. Systems such as STAR voting and approval voting seem better.
That's not strange, that's how it works. Especially if there's a strong 'anyone but Palin' contingent.
Star and approval look fucking terrible and is way out of line of the 'one person one vote' system we have and I think we want.
*For anyone wondering about Alaska, there were two Republicans, including Palin, and one Democrat running for house seat. The other Republican was eliminated in ranked choice. Essentially his votes split to both the Dem and Palin, instead of all going to Palin like the Palin people wanted, and the Democrat won. So the GOP there is now mad.
The GOP was maybe mad, but more importantly to me the people who actually study voting systems for a living were "mad", and the people who hurt their favored candidate by voting for them were likely upset.
Ignoring that the outcome was maybe what I would have wanted, it is definitely pathological that you can hurt a candidate by voting for them. Quoting the Wikipedia:
The election was also a negative voting weight event, where a voter's ballot has the opposite of its intended effect (e.g. a candidate being disqualified for having "too many votes"). In this race, Begich lost as a result of 5,200 ballots ranking him ahead of Peltola; Peltola also would have lost if she had received more support from Palin voters.
What do you find wrong with those other systems? RCV is also not "one person one vote". Approval voting is used in the UN and neither seem to have some of the pathologies of RCV.
Bit of a late edit here, but isn't "one person one vote" basically the description of our current problem with voting? All of these systems are trying to solve that issue.
I will be voting for Kamala, because I do think it's very important that Trump not get reelected. I hope she wins, but her winning alone will not be enough. We need to do a better job of figuring out why America is in the state that it is in, so that we can come up with ways to fix it (assuming it can be fixed).
Absolutely. Voting is incredibly important, but on its own, it just buys time. Without time, we can do nothing - but if we are determined to do nothing, all the time in the world won't save us.
Only in a broken democracy...
Yes. That's what we are stuck with at the moment, though.
Either you play the hand you're dealt or you don't complain when you forfeit the game.
Wrong. One is exactly twice as bad as the other.
One is way better than the other if you're a Trump supporter!
Mathematically, it's still exactly one half as bad as bad to not vote than to vote for the Republican party, regardless of who you are. A vote Republican swings the count 2 points relative to voting Democrat. No vote, 1 point relative to voting Democrat.
In a democracy, you only get a voice if you vote. Voting IS the protest. When you don't vote, or spoil your vote, you abdicate your voice.
I don't completely disagree with you here. But when you only get 2 real options that don't align with what you really want, then do you actually have a voice? It feels like to me we can pick x, y, or if we want to waste our vote then z. Z is what some people really want, it's not gonna happen, but that's what they want. But they must settle for x or y. How is their voice being heard?
Say you're vegetarian and you get a vote in what the office gets for lunch. You can get either steakhouse meaty meats or pizza. You don't love pizza but a slice of cheese pizza beats not eating. You'd rather everyone order from a sandwich shop where you can choose a veggie sandwich. But that's either not an option or everyone would vote for the other two making your lone vote was wasted because it didn't sway the democratic majority in your favor at all. So you vote for cheese pizza over a mass of brisket or whatever.
Did you get a voice? Yeah, you did. This is what people mean by "lesser of two evils." A minority opinion in a democracy doesn't get to authoritatively decide what's best for everyone. Also, primaries and local elections exist.
Source: Someone with an unpopular opinion on everything
I understand what your saying and agree with you. That is definitely an example of having a voice. I think what many people are getting tired of is being forced to vote against something rather than voting for something. You still have a voice, but you're not voting for cheese pizza. You're voting against brisket. I get that's just how things are sometimes, but after so many office lunches, it'd be nice to see something other than pizza and brisket.
Fixing that requires long-term thinking and action. Something that the Greens and others refuse to do. If Stein, hypothetically was elected, at best, it would be a lame duck presidency because she would have no support from any other branch (except for things supported by Putin).
Local elections, primaries, and congressional seats are needed for actual change. That doesn't have the immediate gratification though of visibly pretending to do something, regardless of if it actually helps.
In the current situation you could try to pretend that your vote is useful by not voting or voting third parties. But that it is not the reality of the consequences.
These morons at the bar were talking about how they plan to vote 3rd party to "show them" they're sick of two party.
We're all sick of two party but voting 3rd party right now doesn't magically fix it. And in this particular election it could possibly mean you never get to vote again.
Technically, there can be a difference, but only if you are a Trump supporter
Even for tiny, tiny social media platforms like the fediverse, the current propaganda/misinformation campaign is tailor-made for the expected audience.
E.g., on Facebook it might be enough to post AI slop depicting Trump as a saint. Here, that won't fly. You have to understand that a lot of lefties and educated people reside here, so you just have to point the undecided to a third party. Maybe you're not even after the actual undecided, spreading FUD is usually good enough. And a healthy dose of "both sides"!
Of course, it's vital to omit the fact that FPTP systems always devolve into two-party systems (a fact well understood), and you're good to go. Easy rubles probably.
only if you're in a swing state. In which case vote tactically. If you're not in a swing state do not vote trump and do not vote Harris. Instead vote third party there to maybe get a 5% national representation and therefore get more funding for em.
Voting tactics woo.