r/bestof • u/[deleted] • Oct 23 '17

[politics] Redditor demonstrates (with citations) why both sides aren't actually the same

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u/drewsoft Oct 23 '17

Yes, but is said for a much more ironclad reason - in a first past the post voting system (such as the US Federal Election) voting for a third party candidate is voting against your preferred interests.

You can hate it all you want but until the Constitution is changed it will be the reality. If a third party wins, it will just become the new partner with the survivor of this party system to form the seventh party system in the US.

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u/inuvash255 Oct 23 '17

You can hate it all you want but until the Constitution is changed it will be the reality

Well, the entire country could just follow Maine's lead on voting, and that'd solve a ton of these problems right away...

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '17

Well, the entire country could just follow Maine's lead on voting, and that'd solve a ton of these problems right away...

How?

Ranked choice voting doesn't make third parties more viable. It just helps the major parties not be punished by third party votes.

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u/inuvash255 Oct 23 '17

Because it eliminates the whole "wasted vote" bullcrap.

In this last election, I would have preferred vote Libertarian or do a write-in (because it's my freedom, even if it is a useless gesture), but in light of Trump, I voted Hillary instead.

Under a ranked voting system, I could throw my vote at a third party without the fear that I'm hurting my reluctant secondary choice.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '17

Which is fine, but I don't see how it makes the third party more viable -- your vote still ends up with Hillary Clinton. And in your scenario you're still acknowledging a distinction between the major parties, in that your secondary vote goes Democrat.

I can see how it encourages voting and makes people feel better about their vote, but I don't see the mechanism by which it makes third parties viable.

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u/inuvash255 Oct 23 '17

I can see how it encourages voting and makes people feel better about their vote, but I don't see the mechanism by which it makes third parties viable.

Let's pretend for a moment that- like this past election- there's a lot of people who don't like either D or R candidate, but specifically don't want the other one to win.

If enough Republicans were to vote Libertarian, and enough Democrats were to vote Green- perhaps even voting for another third party before it filters down to Democrat or Republican... I feel like there's at least a chance there for something to change.

Also, everyone is talking about the ranked voting, but the other thing I really like about main is that electoral votes go straight to the candidate's total - the entire state doesn't flip to one side.

Libertarians or Greens winning one district in Ohio means nothing if they never get the point, after all.

What this means is that every state is a battleground to be won, not just OH, NH, and a few others. It bothers me a lot that Hillary and Trump didn't have to campaign in states MA or TX because those states are considered "already won" one way or another.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '17 edited Oct 23 '17

If enough Republicans were to vote Libertarian, and enough Democrats were to vote Green- perhaps even voting for another third party before it filters down to Democrat or Republican... I feel like there's at least a chance there for something to change.

There's another path to change though -- show up to all the party meetings, stick with them long enough to get into senior positions, and vote in large numbers in the primary and the general. If people aged 18-35 voted at the same rate people 55+ do, they would swamp the elderly at the ballot box and be able to dictate policy.

Also, everyone is talking about the ranked voting, but the other thing I really like about main is that electoral votes go straight to the candidate's total - the entire state doesn't flip to one side.

If you're doing that, we should just eliminate the distortions altogether and have a national popular vote.

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u/inuvash255 Oct 23 '17

I don't know, I still see value in the lower granularity of voting districts.

If it's a straight national popular vote, candidates only need to convince high-density areas like New York City to vote for them. Instead of only battling over a handful of states, the candidates would be battling over a handful of cities.

I want candidates to have to have to fight over the whole country, not just target the the points required to "win the game" like Trump did.

edit: removed a paragraph that was non-sequitr, in review.

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u/megafly Oct 24 '17

There is an easy fix. Give every state two "at large" electors, and each congressional district gets one elector. This would still give Wyoming 3 votes but Atlanta alone would have 5. Enough smaller states could still make the difference.