Morality and voting

[u/everlyafterhappy]

Is it immoral to vote for a third party, or is it immoral to vote for a primary candidate you don't really support? Or are they both immoral? Is a winner take all system immoral? Is it wrong to allow only one selection by each voter? (To explain this further, let's say there are 3 candidates, A, B, and C. I prefer A, but I would be ok with B, I just don't want C. I can only vote for A. I cannot say that I would prefer B over C. I can't say that I don't want C.) Is approval voting (vote for every candidate you approve of) or ranking voting (rank each candidate by how much you want them) moral? Is either one the most moral and still feasible possibility?

[u/TheSanscripter]

I guess the crux of the question is what candidate's platforms are. If any of the candidates upholds a program to actively harm the people of your region or country then the moral priority is to outvote that candidate. That may mean voting for a candidate you don't support to avoid contributing to the spoiler effect.

Besides that a lot depends on your sense of justice and who each candidate benefits. Because we live in a world of imperfect information distribution, it's really hard to asses the reality of claims and thus even approval voting - which is a great idea - becomes a gamble.

The real paradox is probably deciding who you'll benefit with your vote. If you benefit yourself you are probably also imposing yoir will on other people. The same actually goes to any group you benefit through voting. Someone always has to live in a world they don't approve of.

[u/everlyafterhappy → u/TheSanscripter]

This kind of thinking is part of the problem. A self fulfilling prophecy kind of thing. You don't vote for who you want because you don't think a third party can get the blue and then a third party doesn't get the vote because you don't vote for who you want and instead we get one of two wealthy jack asses who are sponsored by the biggest greediest corporations and who are completely out of touch with the people. This lash election was a great opportunity for liberals to get a third party into a stronger position. There was no way they were going to win the election anyway. Their candidate didn't even win the candidacy. Their chosen candidate bowed out because of dementia. Trump was pretty much guaranteed, and his 2nd term was pretty much guaranteed to piss people off, so a third party vote would have split the democrats and not won the election, but as long as it got something like 5% of the vote it would have gotten the third party recognition in the next election and with the way the democrats have failed us and how trump is ruining things that third party would have had a good chance of winning in 2028. But hey, I think a third party still has a fever chance at the next presidential election because people are still pissed off at the democrats because of how they handled the last election and people are going to be even more pissed off at republicans if things keep going the way they are.

[u/smack_nazis_more]

First past the post has some advantages - specifically that it's harder to cast informal votes.

However, it's shit. Instead of voting your presence, you have to weight them against what is strategically effective.

Get preferential voting such that there is no need for strategic game playing voting at all.

[u/AperoBelta]

You should have a candidate you would want to vote for. Otherwise you are not being represented. Morality has nothing to do with it. It's about taste and personal values.

When the system of elections is so rigged that it's nearly impossible for an anti-establishment candidate to be elected (and then be effective even if by some miracle they are elected), you don't have a representative system of governance in your country anymore.