I find it disconcerting that one could use such hyperbolic language when voting for the "least worst" option is clearly the rational thing to do when there are direct, personal stakes from the *outcome. The ramifications to minorities by electing a very conservative Republican, or a pretend-Conservative who is a not-pretend racist like Trump, are quite significant. By doing anything, by action or inaction, to put Trump in the White House, there is a substantial risk of reduced voting access for minority voters. For poor voters, there is a substantial risk of losing the social safety net. For women, a likely increase in barriers to reproductive health.
No, you don't have to vote for the least-bad option. But we all know that a third-party candidate is not going to win the election. You're expressing at horror that people with skin in the game, where the stakes are quite high (or seem to be), are unwilling to make a political and philosophical stand at the expense of their own best interests. Until there is some level of voting system reform, we're likely stuck with first-past-the-post system that encourages two-party rule.
Of course I think you should vote for a third-party candidate if you want to. It's your vote! Maybe it'll lead to funding for their campaign next time. But I take great umbrage with the disgust and horror shown to people acting pragmatically because of what a third-party vote may lead to for them.
> But we all know that a third-party candidate is not going to win the election.
A third party doesn't actually don't need to win. If a candidate does not receive a majority in the electoral college I believe the house / congress decides[1]. This would also pretty much destroy both parties - they will have to compromise and come closer to the middle.
Basically, if a third party can get even 15% of the vote it would open the door for another candidate.
[1] http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/a...
(1) a third party is unlikely, in failing to win, to get even a single electoral vote, much less be instrumental in denying the leading major-party candidate a majority.
(2) If no candidate gets an electoral majority for the Presidency, the House elects a President on a one-vote per state basis (and if they don't do it by a specified time, the Vice President becomes President); if no candidate gets an electoral majority for the Vice Presidency, the Senate elects a Vice President.
> This would also pretty much destroy both parties - they will have to compromise and come closer to the middle.
Why would it destroy both major parties -- particularly the one that still wins the Presidency in that scenario?
> Basically, if a third party can get even 15% of the vote it would open the door for another candidate.
No, it wouldn't. We know that, because its happened, not that many elections ago (H. Ross Perot, 18.9% in 1992.)
You're also ignoring all the changes made to election rules since Perot (all made to prevent such a strong showing again)?
Elections aren't thought experiments. The parable humorously expresses what so many third-party evangelists express: that the candidates are basically equivalent to each other, or equally bad. I find that position distastefully incorrect, or at the very least naively spoken from a position of privilege.
Elections aren't thought experiments, the results will have tangible and long-lasting results. I'm not personally willing to sacrifice some of the issues I perceive to be at stake this election on the altar of a third-party candidate who cannot win. If you are, then great! It's your vote, do with it as you please. It's the moral smugness that usually accompanies the position that bothers me, as if voting for a viable candidate is either irrational or barely moral.
Further, the "Wrong Lizard" parable is a parable of collective-created system. I'm an individual acting within in a moment where the reality is already defined, as are all other individual voters. It's problematic to apply collective-level critiques to individual behaviors because what is less sensible at the collective-level is fully sensible at the individual-level.
But, again, see what you want to see. If it makes you feel like you've got the high ground or something it's no skin off my back.
http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/fund.shtml
Also, why can't I reply to siblings of this post?
Anyway, I don't see what difference federal funding would make. They're still not going to have a chance at winning or meaningfully affecting the policies of the major parties. In the unlikely event they do manage to win, it's basically mathematically guaranteed that they'll just displace one of the other major parties and we'll be back to a two-party system again. This is, of course, what happened in the mid 19th century when the Republican Party displaced the Whigs. There's no way around it in a first-past-the-post system. If you want third parties to be viable (and I sure do!) then you need electoral reform, not protest votes.
A third party doesn't actually don't need to win. If a candidate does not receive a majority in the electoral college I believe the house / congress decides[1]. This would also pretty much destroy both parties - they will have to compromise and come closer to the middle.
[1] http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/a...
PARTY CONVENTION AND GENERAL ELECTION GRANTS The presidential nominee of each major party may become eligible for a public grant of $20,000,000 plus COLA (over 1974). For 2012, the grant was approximately $91,241,400 for each major party nominee. However, the two major party presidential nominees in 2012 opted out of the public financing program in the general election. Candidates themselves may not raise any other funds to be used for campaigning during the general election period. The general election limit for publicly funded candidates for 2016 is $96,140,600.
> If you are saying you have to choose between two bad candidates, you are implying you would choose a better option if one existed.
Well there's a word missing here that changes it. People are not typically implying they would choose a better option if one existed; rather, they are typically implying they would choose a different viable candidate if a different viable candidate existed.
> If you don't think the third party candidate is a better option, that's fine, don't vote third party, but if you think the major party options are evil, the just don't vote.
This is again a suggestion I take umbrage to, and one I feel primarily made by those unlikely to feel the level of personal impact from a given election. Both candidates are the same, unless your voting rights are threatened. Both candidates are the same, unless you're reproductive rights are threatened. Both candidates are the same, unless you depend on food stamps to feed your children and yourself.
Elections have real stakes. It's all well-and-good to take a philosophical stance with a third-party, but that third-party candidate isn't going to win. It's both a self-fulfilling prophecy to say so, and a pragmatic acknowledgement of present-day reality. So, when one of two people will win, and your vote does matter (which isn't a given), then the rational thing to do is vote for the person who you feel will do you the most good or least harm. And everyone that turns their nose up at you for not tilting against windmills can learn to take it easy.
That is not what I said, though I don't necessarily disagree. I am making the argument that voting is a self-interested exercise one way or the other; even voting for the "greater good" is an exercise in personal self-interest. So if you evaluate the two candidates who have any chance of winning and find a significant difference in how you and your peers' lives will be affected, then it's rational to vote for one of those candidates even if your views align better to a non-viable third-party candidate.
> The second point you are trying to make is saying that you should only vote for a viable candidate
No, that is again not what I am saying or have said. You're inferring something I'm not implying. Everyone should vote how they want to vote. What I don't like is the philosophical grandstanding about how if one doesn't really like either candidate that they should not vote or vote third-party, or that voting third-party or abstaining is some symbol of moral strength or "rightness."
It's easy to laud the nobility of voting third party or abstaining, futility of outcome or not, when you view the outcome of either viable candidate as basically equivalent. But they aren't equivalent, especially to certain subgroups of people. You specifically encouraged people not to vote for "evil candidates"; if you meant the word "evil" literally then fine, ignore this. But I don't think you did, and therefore I found your suggestion quite distasteful.
I'd like to do whatever I want with my time. But I have to pay for things, and I'm not independently wealthy, so I seek the least worst job I can get.
I'd like to live in a perfect house in a perfect neighborhood, but I haven't found that yet so I chose to buy the least worst house/neighborhood combo I could find and afford.
I'd like to have no commute, but I need to be in the office to work, so I have to find the least worst way to get too and from work.
I'd like to be in shape, but because I don't have time to play outside all day (my preferred form of exercise), I have to pursue concentrated exercise sessions. I try to find the least worst way to work out enough to maintain the least worst level of fitness.
Now, you might say that's a limiting and negative way to look at things like jobs, homes, exercise, etc. To which I would say it's also a silly way to look at elections.
I think this is highly dependent on "how bad" the two mainstream options are. There are plenty people who think there is a legitimate concern that a Trump presidency could lead to nuclear war or some other kind of national disaster. If you believe this is a real possibility it comes much easier to empathize with voting for the "least bad option".
TL;DR I dislike Regan, but in a Regan vs Hitler election I would vote for Regan rather than a 3rd party I was actually more aligned with to try to ensure Hitler did not rise to power.
The fact that it's based on the popular vote is great because the Electoral College doesn't get in way. Interestingly, if you live in a state that isn't a swing state, voting third party is possibly more meaningful than voting R or D. For example, if you live in California, voting for Clinton is unnecessary and voting for Trump is pointless, but voting for Stein or Johnson could actually have a real effect.
For any individual voter, under most scenarios that end up existing at the time of casting a ballot on election day in the electoral system like that of the US, while any single vote is unlikely to have an effect on the outcome, the most likely nonzero effect of a third party vote vs. voting for the least disfavored major candidate is to elect the most disfavored major party candidate.
If you don't like the major candidate, its certainly makes sense to promote a third party candidate so that the calculus on election day is different than normal and it becomes rational for people to vote for a third party candidate (at which point, that "third-party" will have become, for the purpose of the election, one of the two major parties, displacing one of the previous ones for which it will no longer be rational to vote, for the same reason it normally is not for a third party), but it makes less sense to actually vote for a third-party candidate when that transformation of circumstances has not taken place before the election.
We really need some way where people can vote conscience without spoiling.
But that's exactly what you have to do in a first past the post system, and especially with the Electoral college. A vote for Jill Stein (assuming Jill Stein doesn't win) that would have otherwise gone to Hillary Clinton if the voter had chosen the 'least worst option' is in effect a vote against Clinton.
With IRV your advice would be good, but that's not how the US system works.
Yes, this is fucked up, and yes, it needs to change. Voting for Ed Snowden will not change it.
Given that the maximum involvement most people desire in politics is visiting polling stations to vote twice a year, or maybe volunteering to help campaign for one specific candidate, my advice is to just vote for whomever would make you feel good as you exit the polls.
If you would otherwise stay home, you can still make a meaningful difference by voting for a third party, because there are percentage-of-the-total-vote thresholds (varying by state) that impact whether that party has to overcome a crippling barrier to entry (again) for the next election.
The third-party candidate is not going to win. But you can help prevent that party from being required to collect 50000 signatures (costing them $100000) to get on the ballot next time. If you hate both major candidates, this election is not really your fight, anyway. You can, however, vote for "better luck next time" by making a third party seem more like a serious contender.
Vote for the candidate that most closely reflects your desires. As long as the two major parties can always manipulate voters into "lesser of two evils" and choose between "douche vs. turd sandwich" or "stupid vs. evil", they will never have any incentive to change tactics. Vote for a single-issue party if you support their position. Otherwise, vote Libertarian, Green, or Constitution if you have the option.
Check your state's ballot access laws. It may be a better option to strategically not vote at all for a particular office, such as governor, to reduce the signature burden for ballot access in the next election.
I see voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson as being a long term play.
That being said, you can also protest vote by putting in "Edward Snowden" or something.
Honestly, I find it horrifying people feel the need to vote for the "least worst option". You're essentially electing a temporary dictator (potentially at least), please don't vote for someone you dislike. Even if you dislike one less than the other, you still dislike them...
Try not to let fear influence you when selecting a leader. A leader needs to guide and protect the group, not be the least bad member of the group.