Didn’t say it did work. I’m not presenting a solution here, I’m not the messiah.
For a problem like what the US currently has, IMO they’re kind of past the point where voting alone is going to solve it. They needed to change their voting system before an authoritarian despot took control. Hopefully they’ll remember this when trying to piece some sort of new government back together once he’s gone.
So they needed to fix it in the 1700s?
The US has always been an authoritarian shit hole that replaced divine right with capital right. The whiskey rebellion is proof none of the founding fathers gave a singular shit about democracy or freedom.
The literal living deification of Washington guaranteed that would happen, though, so its not exactly surprising they developed a sacred text along side their new god.
Why, is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party or is it just because you think voting for the Dems to lose yet another election is the winning strategy?
is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party
No, we live in a first-past-the-post system where votes disappear into a black hole if they aren’t cast for the candidate with the plurality of votes, you smarmy fucking dipshit.
Mixed member proportional has regional list candidates that compensate parties that are underrepresented in seats compared to their popular vote within that region. Regardless of how your preferred candidate does, your vote affects the regional results. New Zealand uses this at a national level, and Germany and the UK both have it in some sub-national elections
Party list proportional has you vote for a party rather than a candidate, and each party gets a number of seats proportional to the number of votes. If your preferred party doesn’t win, they still get some seats. If they do win, your vote still gets them more seats. Absolutely loads of countries do this method.
In a single transferable vote system, you rank the candidates. If candidates get enough first-choice votes to meet a given threshold, they’re elected. Any surplus votes go towards the voter’s next choice, potentially electing them. If your first choice is the least-popular, they’re eliminated and your vote goes to your next choice. Either way, the vote isn’t wasted. Ireland and Australia use this.
is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party
No, they just choose not to. Fewer than 99% of legislative offices at the state and federal level are held by third party or independent politicians. No third party candidate for President has won a single Electoral College delegate since 1968, and Perot won almost 20% of the popular vote in 1992. In 2024 not one 3rd party was on the ballot in all 50 states, only 3 were on the ballot in more than 10 states. Did you know that when Bernie Sanders was first elected Senator in 2006, he actually won the Democratic primary but turned down the nomination to run as an Independent? So he already had the name recognition of the Democratic voters.
Unless and until your state has ranked choice or approval voting all you’re doing is lowering the threshold that the most popular candidate from the other end of the spectrum needs in order to win. The best strategy for change is to vote in the Democratic primaries (this is the important part, that people aren’t really doing today) and then for the Democratic nominee in the general while simultaneously working to get election reform on your ballot (and only 26 states allow direct ballot initiatives, the rest require the state legislature to put initiatives on the ballot for a direct vote by the public).
Because how voting currently works in the US no third party candidate would/has get close to winning.
Worse, third-party candidates are actively counterproductive. Here is the classic short video explaining how first-past-the-post voting systems inevitably lead to a two-party state.
We all know about the evils of first past the post here, but voting blue doesn’t. Fucking. Work.
Didn’t say it did work. I’m not presenting a solution here, I’m not the messiah.
For a problem like what the US currently has, IMO they’re kind of past the point where voting alone is going to solve it. They needed to change their voting system before an authoritarian despot took control. Hopefully they’ll remember this when trying to piece some sort of new government back together once he’s gone.
So they needed to fix it in the 1700s? The US has always been an authoritarian shit hole that replaced divine right with capital right. The whiskey rebellion is proof none of the founding fathers gave a singular shit about democracy or freedom.
The earlier the better I suppose. Americans kind of trapped themselves by turning their constitution into a holy book, though.
The literal living deification of Washington guaranteed that would happen, though, so its not exactly surprising they developed a sacred text along side their new god.
The greatest lie that the working class has been fed is that its rulers care about them.
Nah. Freedom and democracy has always been for wealthy white males. They literally see themselves as human and everyone else as animals.
The thing that works the least is shitting in the pool, which is what voting third party is.
Voting alone was never going to work. Organize then we can talk about whether voting third party makes sense or not.
A rep from a Alaska introduced a bill that would attempt to make ranked choice voting illegal 🫠 just open tyranny
ms palin lost due to rank choiced voting.
Why, is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party or is it just because you think voting for the Dems to lose yet another election is the winning strategy?
No, we live in a first-past-the-post system where votes disappear into a black hole if they aren’t cast for the candidate with the plurality of votes, you smarmy fucking dipshit.
That’s the same as all voting systems currently implemented around the world.
No, it isn’t.
Mixed member proportional has regional list candidates that compensate parties that are underrepresented in seats compared to their popular vote within that region. Regardless of how your preferred candidate does, your vote affects the regional results. New Zealand uses this at a national level, and Germany and the UK both have it in some sub-national elections
Party list proportional has you vote for a party rather than a candidate, and each party gets a number of seats proportional to the number of votes. If your preferred party doesn’t win, they still get some seats. If they do win, your vote still gets them more seats. Absolutely loads of countries do this method.
In a single transferable vote system, you rank the candidates. If candidates get enough first-choice votes to meet a given threshold, they’re elected. Any surplus votes go towards the voter’s next choice, potentially electing them. If your first choice is the least-popular, they’re eliminated and your vote goes to your next choice. Either way, the vote isn’t wasted. Ireland and Australia use this.
No, they just choose not to. Fewer than 99% of legislative offices at the state and federal level are held by third party or independent politicians. No third party candidate for President has won a single Electoral College delegate since 1968, and Perot won almost 20% of the popular vote in 1992. In 2024 not one 3rd party was on the ballot in all 50 states, only 3 were on the ballot in more than 10 states. Did you know that when Bernie Sanders was first elected Senator in 2006, he actually won the Democratic primary but turned down the nomination to run as an Independent? So he already had the name recognition of the Democratic voters.
Unless and until your state has ranked choice or approval voting all you’re doing is lowering the threshold that the most popular candidate from the other end of the spectrum needs in order to win. The best strategy for change is to vote in the Democratic primaries (this is the important part, that people aren’t really doing today) and then for the Democratic nominee in the general while simultaneously working to get election reform on your ballot (and only 26 states allow direct ballot initiatives, the rest require the state legislature to put initiatives on the ballot for a direct vote by the public).
It’s a psychological problem at this point for why third parties never win, even if they overwhelmingly represent the interests of the masses.