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.
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.
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some strange properties of RCV – which ended up being displayed in Alaska’s first election using it and caused it to be repealed in Vermont – I’ve been a bit suspect of it.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…
Either you play the hand you’re dealt or you don’t complain when you forfeit the game.
There are way more options than playing or forfeiting when you find out the game is rigged…like flipping over the table chasing the dealer with a whip. Jesus style.
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.
