Why just voting for 'the lesser evil' is so frustrating...

[AJMD429]

.
...too many like this puke wind up in power...

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/0 ... stigation/

Not to mention McConnell and Romney and so on....

[Old Savage]

So what is your solution?

[AJMD429]

.
Elections should allow voters to pick more than one candidate.
That is the only way to pull in a third party without the 'thrown-away vote' risk.

[Old Savage]

Third parties have never worked here. It’s like splitting the difference, 44 Mag - 357 Mag … 41 Mag never went anywhere. Like Yogi Berra said, when you come to the fork in the road, take it. Here the right and left control the energy. The middle ground which decides is left with some contorted view like Libertarians.

[jeepnik]

Sadly, in this state we don’t even have a two party system. Where once the top republican and top democrat from the primary election faced each other in the general election this no longer happens. Now the top two, regardless of party are in the general.

This might sound good in theory but now we often have two people from the same party facing off. And how did we get here? The idiots voted for it.

[AJMD429]

.
'Third' parties aren't necessarily 'middle of the road' compromise parties, plus there is more than one dimension to politics, at least if there are more than two parties.

Even in the one-dimensiinal world we are floundering in, consider that if 'A' is 100% 'conservative' and 'Z' is 100% 'liberal', we typically get a Democrat around the letter 'W'. So along comes a Republican and their best way to win is NOT to be an 'A' - but to be a 'V'. That way they get the most votes because they capture the 'moderates' that a candidate scoring 'A' or even 'G' would lose.

However if THREE candidates were running and we could vote for two, I'd vote for BOTH the 'G' (who I really want to win) and possibly the 'V' just to be sure the 'W' doesn't win.

So the way to avoid the 'moderate' lesser-evil is simply to allow voters to vote for any candidate they'd be ok with, vs just one.

[Old Savage]

Here is what really happens. If there are three candidates the two most alike lose. The third parties that are more left or right of the two majors lose. And they take some votes from the R or D. It is a losing premise here in the US taken by those who do not get the reality of politics here. They just seem to want to assuage their own intellect/conscious.

I know that you swing to practicality in the end.

[Old Savage]

Let me add this, I am probably best pegged I suppose as a constitutional conservative and have never seen any third party that makes any practical sense.

[AJMD429]

Here is what really happens. If there are three candidates the two most alike lose. The third parties that are more left or right of the two majors lose. And they take some votes from the R or D. It is a losing premise here in the US taken by those who do not get the reality of politics here. They just seem to want to assuage their own intellect/conscious.

I know that you swing to practicality in the end.

I think what you're saying is correct, IF there is only one candidate you can vote for. Voting for more than one changes the dynamics quite a bit. Nobody "takes votes" from R or D if you can vote for more than one candidate. It's not exactly a new thing we do it all the time for County elections.

Let me add this, I am probably best pegged I suppose as a constitutional conservative and have never seen any third party that makes any practical sense.

The problem is we live in a reality where often neither the 'first' or 'second' party makes any practical sense. That's why we have all these fake Republicans that are destroying the country by cooperating with the Democrats.

Introducing 'third' parties causes all sorts of problems when you can only vote for one candidate, but it solves all sorts of problems when you can vote for more than one.

The concept I'm supporting isn't the presence of a third party, it's the ability to vote for more than one candidate. That's an entirely different dynamic.

[Old Savage]

I do not believe you are correct. Show me an example.

[AJMD429]

.
It's simple.

My brother would vote for ANYONE to avoid Romney getting elected. He doesn't like Hillary but would vote for her as his 'lesser evil'. He likes Ron Paul, and would actually prefer Ron Paul, but hesitates to "throw his vote away" so he votes Hillary.

I would vote for ANYONE to avoid Hillary getting elected. I might not like Romney but he'd be my 'lesser evil'. I prefer Ron Paul to either, but wouldn't want to "throw my vote away" so I'll vote Romney.

We get Hillary or Romney...

Under a vote-for-more-than-one-candidate, my brother would vote for who he would be ok with, so he'd vote his preference Paul, but also vote Hillary just in case (so he doesn't have to 'throw his vote away' and risk a Republican winning and killing grandma and all the baby seals). I'd vote for Paul and Romney for the same reason; to avoid Hillary winning and banning guns.

Paul wins...

Now if you want to wade out in the weeds and get distracted by whether Paul is better than Romney we can do that dance, but the point isn't who we use as examples, it's the logic and math. Put Trump in place of Paul and Desantis in place of Romney, or whatever names you wish. The whole point is to have a system where you can vote in a way to both support your favorite candidate AND block the 'worse evil' - i.e. NOT "waste a vote".

I remain to be convinced our vote-for-ONLY-the-lesser-evil system is better than one where you DON'T have to risk "wasting a vote" if there are more than two candidates.

[piller]

We end up now with the more evil of the two lesser humans. If we could break big media's stranglehold on information, then real elections might occur.

[Old Savage]

I suppose I could invent a fantasy world but we are in this one.

[piller]

It seems that some folks are afraid that the twitter stranglehold has been broken. One step at a time.

[Blaine]

Anytime there has been a strong third party conservative, the vote was split and the 'Crat won.
Unless, of course, like some states that have perfected the art of the steal. Then the 'Crat always wins.

[Blaine]

Anytime there has been a strong third party conservative, the vote was split and the 'Crat won.
Unless, of course, like some states that have perfected the art of the steal. Then the 'Crat always wins.

[4t5]

This election................no demoncrats
The next election after....no demoncrats and no rino's
The next after that.........no demoncrats and no rino's, and nobody that didn't keep their promises
The next after that.........only truth tellers

[AJMD429]

Anytime there has been a strong third party conservative, the vote was split and the 'Crat won.
Unless, of course, like some states that have perfected the art of the steal. Then the 'Crat always wins.

The POINT is NOT to 'split' the vote, because that is what we have NOW, when 'third' parties come along and disrupt things by 'taking' votes from the 'lesser evil' (RINO) so the 'worse evil' (CRAT) often wins.

There is no such thing as a 'third' party when you can vote for ANY candidate (i.e. more than just one), so then the effect of the extra candidate is the OPPOSITE - it forces the 'lesser evil' (RINO) to actually be even LESS evil (maybe a true Republican or Conservative), instead of just having to be a tiny bit less evil than the worse evil (CRAT).

In other words, the Romney can still get a vote to 'block' the Clinton, but you don't have to waste a vote on the Romney to avoid voting for the Trump. You can vote for BOTH. Either Trump wins, or if Romney does, he at least feels some pressure to be more Trump-like than Clinton-like, feeling political pressure from both sides instead of just having to be slightly-less-socialist than the Clinton.

I would argue that the most fundamental mistake the Constitution's authors made (aside from forced banishment for any legislator who votes to infringe on the Bill of Rights) is that they allowed for voting-for-more-than-one-candidate in State and Local elections, but didn't allow it for Federal ones. Of course I think they really didn't foresee the immense political machinery we would develop along 'party' lines.

I realize that everyone will pile on and say "but that isn't the system we have, and there is no point in pretending we can do that when we can't..." True, but if you're in a boat that is sinking because the hull has a gaping hole in it, I don't think it's silly to contemplate fixing the hole, or if nothing else, making a note to the effect that if we survive drowning and someday build another boat, making it less likely to get a hole in it.

We are stuck with all these #@$^&*#@$ RINO's because of this glitch, and arguably ALSO the problem with 'us' - in that we tend NOT to be proactive in 'primarying' out the RINO's like we should. Of course the 'party machinery' makes that difficult.

FORTUNATELY, we are seeing some clear signs now that the Republicans ARE becoming more involved in the primarying-out of the RINO's - look at the past couple weeks...!

[Grizz]

the democrats always vote more than once. they inflate the number of "votes", which by now are meaning less tokens on the fake truth table. the depth of the corruption in the Nation cannot be fixed by "voters". at least I don't see any evidence to that effect. when the method of operation is compromise, that's what the outcome is. compromise is the problem because the thing that gets compromised is what's right, so we get whats wrong.

simplistic, I know. †

[piller]

When ordinary citizens become enraged, the politicians better run. Right now I am hearing a lot of anger everywhere.

[AJMD429]

When ordinary citizens become enraged, the politicians better run. Right now I am hearing a lot of anger everywhere.

Yeah, and the interesting phenomenon is how different the right and the left are when they become enraged. The Left becomes enraged and violent over every little thing and they seem to like to punch people in the face and burn cities down, where as it takes the Right quite a while to build up anger, and when they do they tend to use legal and non-violent means for the most part.

Liberal Democrats remind me of the insecure bully who has to pick fights all the time to prove themselves, whereas the actual Conservative Republicans remind me of the big guy who has a black belt in karate who just quietly goes along and tolerates a lot of stuff because he's confident if push comes to shove he has the upper hand.

I'm not sure it's a good thing that Conservative Republicans are like that politically, but it is what it is, and hopefully they are getting riled up enough now that they will make sure that RINO candidates are gotten rid of in the primaries, elections are honest and fair, and politicians who take office have their feet held to the fire.

[Blaine]

Running the top two in a Blue state will get you two 'Crats and no Republicans. That's Washington.

[piller]

Yes, it seems enraged conservatives show up at school board meetings, town hall meetings, and wherever else they can. They have their facts, and they take notes. Politicians get voted out when that happens. Physical violence is done by the leftists.

[AJMD429]

Yes, it seems enraged conservatives show up at school board meetings, town hall meetings, and wherever else they can. They have their facts, and they take notes. Politicians get voted out when that happens. Physical violence is done by the leftists.

LOL then the Dumascraps call Conservatives 'ignorant violent fascists'...

[AJMD429]

Running the top two in a Blue state will get you two 'Crats and no Republicans. That's Washington.

True. Once you get enough trust-fund babies and welfare-queens and big-business cronies, too many are swamp-beneficiaries to vote against it.
Not sure how a place gets back to normal once that happens, unless it can be prevented from sucking off the profitability and protection of non-socialist places, then crashes and has to re-start.
Kind of a micro-version of the EU sucking off the US economy and military all these years.

[AJMD429]

This candidate in Indiana put it better than I can.

http://www.paulhager.org/sos/appvote.htm

[piller]

I am waiting for CNN to show how that is RACIST and homophobic.

[Grizz]

The bleeding away of support just before the election that is the bane of third party candidates would also be a thing of the past. For example, analysis of the 1980 3-way Presidential race in which John Anderson got around 7% of the vote shows that had AV been used, Reagan would still have been the landslide winner but Anderson would have received an approval vote of around 40%, a huge increase. AV allows third party or alternate candidates to show their true strength.

I don't understand this. Why would Reagan want Anderson to show a 40% approval? Wouldn't that give Anderson a platform for opposing Reagan, or a diplomatic appointment to send him to the 'stans? If I were for Reagan, why would I want Anderson to become the t.v. opposition voice against every thing Reagan wanted to accomplish?

It sounds a wee bit like a parliamentary setup. That hasn't done Israel any good. Or Canada. Or Britain for that matter. Those governments are as tone-deaf as biden.

Which makes me think that the old way, one man one vote, is still the right way. Only it is easily manipulated by the vote stealers. Which makes me think that the corrective action is paper only ballots, with proper photo ID to vote in person, and double-entry book keeping. There would still be an opportunity for, say, absentee voting for invalids and others, that would be challenged on a case by case basis, again with double entry book keeping so that once the total number of legitimately registered voters is debited to zero, no more votes can be counted.

I don't know if this is good, bad, or just ugly. But it seems more rational to me than the beauty queen approach with highly over rated runner-ups.

Yes? No? or Yes and Maybe and No ???

[AJMD429]

.
One man one vote is what gets his people like Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell.

Unless we had a law that only allowed two candidates to run for any given office there is always the chance we get a third candidate and that third candidate splits the vote so the worst of the three wins. It happens all the time, and it's the main argument against third parties, but the argument doesn't face the reality test because there are often more than two candidates running and no practical way to stop that even if it were a good idea to stop that. There are other differences in the so-called parliamentary system that render it a problem, but it is not due to approval-style voting.

The problem is that the concept is complicated and I don't think the general public can process anything much bigger than can be printed on a bumper sticker when it comes to political discourse, so that, coupled with the fairly large bunch of people who are RINOs and Democrats, or as they call it now the 'uniparty', they certainly don't want anything that would threaten their grip on power.

Until we actually change it, it seems we are going to be ratcheting ever downward towards authoritarianism, weaving slightly to the left then to the right every 4 years or so. Trump was an exception that slipped through the cracks and obviously scared the stuff out of the swamp. If we are extremely lucky that could happen again, but I think one of the reasons the Democrats are so obsessed with disarming the public is that they want that to happen before they try to steal the next election, because this time I think they realize everybody's going to be watching and they are going to be caught red-handed.

[Old Savage]

65 angels dancing on the head of a pin. This is not going to change and third party fans have no chance of changing it. They are just avoiding reality. You are voting against your enemy not the lesser of two evils. And I know you know this. You also know most people revert to their preferred understanding.

[AJMD429]

.
Sadly some of the primaries where we hoped to get rid of RINOs had one RINO and a couple decent conservative Republicans, and the RINO gets say 38%, and the others each 31%. So 'splitting the vote' screws us even within the party. I know "it will never happen" but if we got to set up a government all over again, it would be so nice if we could vote for BOTH the conservatives, because clearly 62% wanted to get rid of the RINO and only 38% wanted to keep him.

Then there's the states that allow Democrats to vote in Republican primaries, too....