Summary
Voters across eight states, including Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada, rejected ballot measures for election reforms such as ranked choice voting (RCV) and open primaries, despite a $110 million push from advocates.
The movement, inspired by Alaska’s 2020 adoption of these reforms, failed to gain traction, with critics citing confusion and doubts over RCV’s benefits.
Some reforms succeeded locally, including in Portland, Oregon, but opposition remains strong.
I think a big, often-overlooked part of the problem with third-parties is that people disregard them not only because they “can’t win” but also because they’re invariably full of deeply-unserious lunatics that nobody wants to vote for anyway.
Think about it: because of first-past-the-post, pretty much every would-be politician who (a) actually grasps how the system works and (b) actually cares about getting into office is going to join either the Democrats or the Republicans. So who’s left to join third parties? The answer is, morons that nobody wants in charge of anything, and idealogues too fanatical to moderate their platform to win support and too stubborn to care that it makes them unelectable.
In other words, there’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem going on here: people need to want to vote for third-parties in order to care about RCV, and third-parties need RCV to be able to attract politicians that would give them credibility.
Yeah, I’d say that’s right. I’ve looked at the Greens, and Jill Stein in particular, and evaluated their history on their own merits. They’re clowns. Shooting climate policy in the foot by historical opposition to nuclear, and having an internal fight to take homeopathy out of their healthcare policies. If we had ranked choice in my state, I’d still rate Jill Stein higher than a random Republican, but I’d be looking for so many other progressive candidates above her.
Now, I’ve also been looking at the Working Families Party, which isn’t dumb enough to run a spoiler candidate, and they’re quite clear on that. They work with Democrats hoping to get things like fusion voting and ranked choice passed. Meanwhile, run candidates where it makes sense and look for other strategic opportunities.