66 points

My city had ranked choice voting implemented by Democrats in the 1970s. They elected the first black mayor, who is still one of our most beloved mayors in the city’s history, under RCV.

Then Republicans made it illegal at a state level when they had a trifecta. Democrats keep introducing bills at the state level to allow RCV, and Republicans take more and more drastic action against it. So yeah… I want more Democrats in my state government so we can have RCV.

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-3 points

Why don’t you name the city and mayor?

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29 points
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Because I didn’t think it particularly important for countering this same old tired BS. But if you really want to know, it’s Ann Arbor, MI and the mayor was Albert Wheeler.

(Edit and fun fact: I’m writing this from Wheeler Park right now ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ)

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0 points

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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84 points
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Alaska, a red state, is reportedly trying to remove their rank choice voting. This isn’t a “Dems” problem, it’s a two party problem.

https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska_Ballot_Measure_2,_Repeal_Top-Four_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Initiative_(2024)

Even if state and local elections are ranked choice, the presidential election will still be a first past the post election and the electoral college is still designed for a two party system.

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26 points

Obviously the Republicans are completely hostile to rcv, but the nominal progressives here aren’t hoping the Republicans will implement rcv, they think Dems will. I have someone arguing exactly that to me in another thread because three congresspeople are currently setting a proposal up to be shot down.

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-2 points

So you primary in Dems who will support ranked choice. This is .ml, surely you’ve all heard of entryism?

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13 points

Entryism doesn’t work, putting yourself under the discipline of a party apparatus that runs contrary to your goals means you either get extricated or you conform.

The dems don’t give a shit about primary results. Bernie’s relative strength in the primary meant nothing to Biden and understandably so, because why should he give a shit when Bernie endorses him and the bulk of the progressives are so whipped they vote for him anyway?

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9 points
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  1. That’s not what entryism is. Entryism isn’t “voting democrat candidates who support xyz in primaries.” Entryism is infiltrating an organization’s membership with communists(or what have you), with the intent to change the basic proportional makeup of its membership ranks, and so change its interior political composition, and so its exterior action.

  2. Entryism is explicitly and categorically denounced by every serious ML as having proven historically and politically ineffective at best, and actively counterproductive and opportunist at worst and most common by far; and has been in explicit terms criticized as such for a century. Saying “Surely you’ve heard of entryism?” to Marxists is like saying “Surely you’ve heard of filling masks with lavender to keep away the miasma?” to an epidemiologist.

  3. The point mentioned in #2 is by a factor of 100 extra true for an organization like the democratic party, which is (just like the Republican party) a monstrous behemoth of leagues of multi-generational dynastic establishment careerist ghouls, thieves, racketeers, and murderers from multi-billionaire elite university family empires; whose entire operations are financed, advised, organized, and run by and for the richest imperialists in the world, with uncountable streams of both open channel money and dark money from private billionaires, banks, industrial monopolies (fossil fuels, pharma, agribusiness, etc.), arms dealers, conglomerate Super PACS, shady Think-tanks and “NGOs,” and the Israel lobby. Obama’s cabinet was hand-picked by Citigroup. Biden has appointed all the most heinous neocons and war criminals he could find, even bringing back convicted massacrists like Elliot Abrams; and hiring the most corrupt people he could find, such as a Chevron lawyer who defended the destruction of the Amazon and poisoning of Indigenous people to head his Environmental executive. All while outflanking the Republicans on the right of many issues including immigration.

**

The Democrats actively benefit just like the Republicans from hyper-restricted 2-corporate-party system, proven by them, currently as we speak, sending out leagues of dark-money Super-PAC-financed lawyers to every state they can to try to purge 3rd parties off the ballots; actively killing democracy. This is their goal and interest, because it is the goal and interest of their donors. They have no interest in a different or better world and never will. Even someone as milquetoast as Bernie ran into endless smears and obstruction and undermining and got nowhere and has capitulated more and more to the right wing by hitching his boat to this circus. The liberal darlings “the squad” have each capitulated or even become active careerists and attack-dogs for the establishment imperialists against alternatives and progressives, barring Ilhan Omar who has faced endless shit and isolation even from the rest of that coward group of “progressive” dems, to say nothing of the establishment that actually runs the show with their army of equally-careerist factory-stamped liberal interns at their beck and call, pipelined from upscale colleges with PoliSci degrees to do whatever bidding they want.

The Democrats are not going to change for anyone but their donors and have proven it for decades; and they are structurally incapable of being budged internally toward anything remotely resembling democracy or socialism. Entryism to the democratic party is beyond a dead end. It would It would be more effective and principled to vote third party and continually elevate a working class party (Like the PSL) and visibly starve the democrats of votes for their failures and betrayals and making it known that is the reason; which would force a political reorientation of the democrats if they ever want power again. This necessary reorientation is impossible within the Democratic party structures, so the ruling class would have to figure out to desperately float a reformist “labor party” or “progressive party” to capture people being funneled to the PSL socialists, and this reformist party would receive an influx of the less-far-right careerist liberals from the Democrats fleeing to the new party “like rats from a sinking ship;” while the Republicans and remaining establishment Democrats proper inevitably join together in a coalition like David Lloyd George’s Conservative-Liberal coalition, or like Macron’s doing with the fascists in France. It’s not even much of a leap for them compared to the existent state of things — they’ve already been converging for decades and most of us have already come to feel the effects of it.

And this way by elevating the PSL, a real working class party who have a broader picture for revolutionary change than limiting to parliamentary dog-and-pony shows against the richest most evil people on the planet, you’re actually helping the ground-up elevation of meaningful on-the-ground working class politics which speak to the 35-50% who are so disillusioned and disenfranchised by the lies and corruption and bloodthirst of the corporate-imperialist duopoly-of-exploiters that they don’t even vote — and activating them into actual meaningful political movement-building and action with a revolutionary long-term perspective, while forcing the establishment’s hand to intercede how it can, highlighting the contradictions and failures of the system. Instead of finding new ways to capitulate to it (which are actually the same ways people have been capitulating to it for a century).

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10 points
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Alaska, a red state, is reportedly trying to remove their rank choice voting. This isn’t a “Dems” problem, it’s a two party problem.

This is a counter to the Democratic party supporters you see everywhere who always get irrationally upset at third party voters, not about Republicans.

The point is, if the Democratic party never plan to address it, then how will it ever get done through voting Dem? The same goes for all the other issues people claim we should ignore in the name of “vote blue no matter who”, including their genocide.

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4 points

So don’t participate in the system, got it. Just stay home and give up on Democracy.

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10 points

Do you think voting is the entirety of political expression for the working class?

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9 points
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So just accept your place in a broken system, got it. Just go support more increasingly right wing fascist policies and give up on any hope for Democracy.*

Pure strawman.

Pretty sure voting for a write in candidate/third party is, by definition, participating in the system.

You just accept the system is broken and undemocratic and believe others should accept this as well and give up.

You are more devoted to “order” than to justice; you prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; you constantly say “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; you paternalistically believe you can set the timetable on progress and constantly advise the progressive to to wait for a “more convenient season”.

You are the “white moderate” MLK warned of, as is the vast majority of the party, though not for long, as the party increasingly seeks the support of the right to avoid allowing any policy victory for the left.

You are increasingly the Republican party of Cheney, as demonstrated by, not only his support for the party, but by the party and Kamala herself touting the endorsement, rather than ignoring it/distancing themselves.

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0 points

This is a counter to the Democratic party supporters you see everywhere who always get irrationally upset at third party voters, not about Republicans.

Plenty of us Democrats are very much in support of a ranked choice voting schemes, or similar structural rules like non-partisan blanket primaries (aka jungle primaries). The most solidly Democratic state, California, has implemented top-2 primaries that give independents and third parties a solid shot for anyone who can get close to a plurality of votes as the top choice.

Alaska’s top four primary, with RCV deciding between those four on election day, is probably the best system we can realistically achieve in a relatively short amount of time.

Plenty of states have ballot initiatives that bypass elected officials, so people should be putting energy into those campaigns.

But by the time it comes down to a plurality-take-all election between a Republican who won the primary, a Democrat who won the primary, and various third party or independents who have no chance of winning, the responsible thing to make your views represented is to vote for the person who represents the best option among people who can win.

Partisan affiliation is open. If a person really wants to run on their own platform, they can go and try to win a primary for a major party, and change it from within.

TL;DR: I’ll fight for structural changes to make it easier for third parties and independents to win. But under the current rules, voting for a spoiler is throwing the election and owning the results.

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-1 points

Doing something that demonstrably doesn’t work isn’t how you get what you want. If you want an option besides Democrats and Republicans, voting for someone else where those two options have a lock on winning does nothing besides vent some spleen.

I’m not saying doing nothing is the solution, or even voting for the two main parties is the solution, but doing something that has been shown to be completely ineffective is not the solution.

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3 points

It is a two party problem but dems and their cult-like followers act like the politicians they worship can do no wrong. Both parties are businesses and that’s it.

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64 points

Right on. Once the republicans have enough of a majority they will deal with all these voting problems.

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-10 points

Both parties say third party votes helps the other side. I have a feeling, it actually just helps 3rd party. Especially if both sides don’t want it.

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10 points

Really not that complicated. If a person who would otherwise vote Democrat instead votes 3rd party, it helps the Republicans. So the Democrat politician says it to that person. Likewise, the Republican says it to those that would otherwise vote Republican. Both parties now claim that it helps the other, but whom it really helps depends on who would otherwise be voted for.

From my outside, proportional representative having-position, 3rd party voting only becomes viable if it is discussed outside of the 6 months before an election. And not in the general “3rd party” term, but with an actual party name attached.

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1 point

The error there is that it assumes Democrats are entitled to Leftist votes, despite not representing Leftists in any conceivable manner. It’s why we see Muslim-Americans flocking to Jill Stein, for the majority of Muslim-Americans genocide against Palestinians is a hard no entirely.

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5 points

this should be required reading before anyone is allowed to leave a comment on Lemmy about voting

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6 points

First objection. Why would the people in power change the voting system that got them in power? Well, the spoiler effect has cost both Dems & Reps a major election before. Getting rid of that glitch would be a win-win for major and minor parties!

This inference is completely defective. Of course a system has a cost, but the cost to a major party of changing to rcv is in many cases to completely hold decades-long strangleholds they previously had. It’s like saying, uh, “Right now Hugh cooks his food, but that sometimes results in him burning himself, so of course he’d be glad to sign on to eating food raw!”

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3 points

The runoff voting downside is incorrect, the “drag the voters up to yellow and watch how it makes red win” example. This is not “see how making yellow more popular makes yellow lose”. It’s actually “see how making red more popular than yellow makes red win”. The movement of the voters is not for yellow, but for red and yellow in a way that gives more voters to red.

There is no way for yellow to be the only candidate to get a boost of voters in the demo. If there were, it would only demonstrate further that yellow would still continue to win.

Runoff voting is the way.

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23 points

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7 points

To the surprise of nobody Republicans also don’t support a voting system that would end the Democrat-Republican duopoly.

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61 points

Someone’s unwillingness to implement an effective solution doesn’t make an ineffective solution the answer.

The way forward on this is hounding them until they implement it, not fighting the math:

https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

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12 points

If a solution doesn’t have a realistic path to implementation, it doesn’t matter. The system itself is designed against change, RCV is something neither party actually wants.

Some few Democrats or states are allowed to support it as far as it gives RCV supporters some semblence of power, without actually pressuring the system.

Even if RCV was implemented, and a Third Party candidate won, the 2 establishment parties would work against any radical change.

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4 points

It pressures the system in those cities or states, which is actual pressure to the system, just not direct pressure on the federal government. History shows you can mount pressure through local and state changes until it gets overwhelming support on a federal level.

You can make the argument there might be more effective or quicker solutions, but this is unquestionably one path toward it.

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5 points

My point is that tiny, inconsequential pressure is allowed so that you think it applies pressure. Whenever it gets close to making a difference, it won’t.

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0 points

if they wont give us what we want or need they dont deserve our votes, maybe next time they will offer more than “im not the other guy”, if the democrats will not be pushed left then they should be destroyed.

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9 points

In order for politics to align towards your values you have to vote for the candidate closest to them, which forces the losing parties to get closer or die, which pushes the winning party to move towards you.

If you throw away or don’t vote none of that happens because you have no impact.

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3 points

This is wrong. The parties don’t see the views of the people that vote for them, just that they recieved more or fewer votes. If Leftists vote Dem 100% of the time, then the Dems will never move any more to the Left, because they already have their vote.

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1 point

You are correct, but everyone is too afraid to work together to find a better candidate/ new party. We no longer can organize ourselves. We can only be organized by institutions apparently. I’d love to be proven wrong on this but watch how much resistance you get. Just trying to suggest that maybe we could do better. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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