"Voting for a third party accomplishes one thing. It takes votes away from one of the other major-party candidates. Given that the status quo favors the Republican candidate – think the Electoral College – voting for a third party is probably going to take votes away from Joe Biden. Whatever you think of him, he’s better than the alternative. (The alternative, by the way, likes making jokes about being a dictator.)
Actually, it accomplishes another thing. It enriches presidential candidates for third parties that do not work in cooperation with one of the major parties. (It’s called “fusion voting.”) For instance, the Green Party — these people know they can’t win. They know the status quo prevents them from winning. They don’t say that, though. In the space between what they know and what their supporters don’t know is a scam. In the absence of systemic change, third parties that don’t cooperate with one of the major parties are inherently exploitative."
Would ranked choice voting help this? Genuine question looking for opinions. I tend to think it would, but that might be too optimistic with politics the way it is these days.
Yes, yes it would.
The way ranked choice works is that everyone’s first rank is tabulated.
If a candidate gets the majority vote in the first choices they win outright.
If not, the candidates with the fewest first choice is eliminated, and those that voted for them, they move on to their second choice picks.
Votes are now recounted. If no one still has a clear majority, the person with the lowest votes is again eliminated, with their voter’s votes going to the next rank in choosing.
You go through that until someone gets a majority.
Other similar systems include STAR voting, Score Voting, and Approval Voting.
Yes, anything other than first past the post would help. Ranked choice, instant runoff, however you want to define it.
It would allow people to vote for a 3rd party without disenfranchising themselves.
Until then…
Yes, though it’s not a magic bullet.
Here’s a video that compares Plurality/FPTP (our current system), Ranked choice, and approval voting, and is up-front about the limitations of each method.
Here’s a link with a lot more information on different voting methods. STAR voting is the method highlighted here as the best, but Score voting and Approval are also pretty good. IRV/Ranked Choice doesn’t perform quite as well, but is at least still better than FPTP.
A new voting system that’s any better than our current system brings us closer to a political landscape where viable candidates who choose not to drop out early aren’t working against their interests, and voters are less incentivized to vote strategically. And even if IRV is only marginally better than FPTP, its popularity gives exposure to the idea that alternative voting systems are worth looking into.
Any third party presidential candidate that aligns mostly (or entirely) with one of the other parties but doesn’t join them is at best chicken shit. If you can’t convince half of the population which is closest to you politically, you’re not going to convince the other half.
The only way a third party candidate would even theoretically work is if they were moderate (think Joe Manchin) where they would appeal to moderates from both parties.
Someone like Jill Stein has no business running outside of the Democratic Party. If she can’t convince the Dems, she’s not convincing the rest of the country. Running as a Dem and convincing 26% of voters is her best road to the presidency, but she knows she’ll never get that much support.
She’s running outside the Democratic Party because she is not Democrat. That’s asking you, why don’t you vote for Republicans
I’m not sure they should win. Watching the electoral dysfunction in Germany and Israel is a hard reminder of the bizzare contortions that party coalitions create.
I just wish the under 35 crowd voted in primaries at rates comparable to the elderly, then maybe we’d see policies that actually helped instead of being the lesser of two evils.
If you keep rewarding bad behavior, you’re going to continue to get evil.
That’s why we have to vote in primaries for non-evil.
But we get outvoted, badly, by senior citizens so old time politics reigns supreme.
This whole purpose of primaries is to keep that evil in power
That’s an… interesting opinion.
Well yeah, there are only so many votes to go around. Unless you can suddenly get a bunch of non-voters to form a new party they have to come from one of the two. That’s kind of the idea, less influence for these two trash can fires of a party, more for something better. Everyone is just so afraid more will come from one party than the other and we’ll be stuck with one dominating, so it never happens. It’s quite the rock and a hard place.
No one party will equally draw from both Democrats and Republicans. Look at the implosion of “No Labels”.
What needs to happen is for the progressives to abandon the Democrats and make their own party, and for the rational Republicans who have been leaving the Republican party since 2010 to form their own conservative party.
So from left to right you’d have:
Progressives—Corporate Democrats-Former Republicans—MAGA Republicans
Yeah, that sounds great. /s
Damn, let all the third and fourth and dozenth parties in other countries know their elections dont count anymore
🌍👨🚀🔫👨🚀
You should learn about other countries and how they have way more than 2 parties in elected positions
The United States doesn’t have the same system as other countries.
Right, youre making sure of that
No, our Constitution made sure of that 236 years ago. Changing it CAN be done, but not in our current political environment.
None of this shits in the constitution
The formation of our country as a Presidential Republic as opposed to a parliamentary system is very much set out in the Constitution.
See articles 1-3 here:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
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Edit: removed unnecessary words
I’m not a partisan, but for the moment the Democrats cares about what I care about.
I’m not a political scientist, but I have taught political science. I’m not a partisan, but for the moment the Democrats cares about what I care about. I’m a journalist, writer and citizen. I’m a fellow at Yale’s Ezra Stiles College; a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly; a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches; and senior editor at Alternet and Raw Story. My byline has been in news outlets big and small, mostly small. Follow me @johnastoehr.
—John Stoehr[1]
I’m bloodfart and I’m voting third party this election!
The party for socialism and liberation is running on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to weapons shipments for Israel.
Loser.
I’m sure both of the people voting for that party in your area will be very happy. So will Trump.
gotta start somewhere. i’m not really interested in trump or what makes him happy.
It is near impossible to beat the duopoly when you’re facing two sets of billionaire class donors and politics driven by fear. Trump and Harris are closer on Policy. Plus with the current system depending on your state your vote is almost preselected going to one person. Such as FL basically going to Trump for free. Why should I vote for someone I can’t influence and who has pledged their loyalty to AIPAC money.
I know liberals don’t care about the issues that drive voters to third parties in the 1st place, lol. It is always kick the can down the road or “We can vote a more progressive person in the future.” It will never happen, so I might as well vote for someone I agree with.
