Support ranked choice voting
this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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North America’s electoral systems are so broken. It’s painful to see so much negativity, frustration, and fear directed at third parties in general. If that same energy was directed towards building a ranked choice voting system with proportional representation, like single transferable voting (STV), the duopolies would crumble and we could all actually vote for whoever we want without having to worry we might end up with the worst candidate winning.
That's great. I Agree.
We got four more years to do that, if Trump doesn't win.
We've had tons of time to change voting systems.
All the third parties couldve banded together to get it done. Ya know. With all their existing seats of power in federal, state, and local government.
Oh wait.
Hint. Hint.
A third party would be worthless if it won federal office right now. It would be roadblocked every step of the way.
I agree that our voting system needs an overhaul. But don't try to do it by electing a third party president. It'll never work, and if it did, they would be falling flat on their face for four more years and paint a terrible picture for the future of all third parties.
A protest vote means absolutely nothing, except that it helps the least-aligned primary party power. You are bolstering your opponent to do so. Literally cutting off your nose to spite your face.
It doesn’t need to start with the federal level. There’s a growing amount of states that have already adopted some form of ranked choice voting and some of those have also adopted a proportional variant. Progress is being made in some places at lower levels, but it’s slow. Other states have banned it unfortunately.
So then what is to be gained by voting for Stein? A clean conscience about the atrocities abroad?
That's cool. Remember that when there are even more atrocities here against your brown and LGBTQ neighbors, while the atrocities abroad dial it up to 11.
Remember that when there's more middle-class homelessness because there's not enough contractors with all the deported. Or not enough food when there's no immigrant labor to tend to the fields. Certainly not enough domestic labor to keep the farms running along with everything else.
Assuming their original country takes them back. If not, they stay here as detainees. Now we are paying to host them in the prison system. But, at least since illegal immigration is a crime, they can essentially be near-free labor thanks to the 13th amendment. Is that the right way to fix the housing crisis? Or lower the costs of food?
Not saying we can't be world police. That position benefits us greatly and give us tons of soft power. But maybe we should worry about keeping our own house from caving in on itself before we start trying to fix someone else's.
Honestly the idea that a real estate tycoon who is addicted to Big Mac's could fix the housing and food markets is laughably absurd. He'll fix 'em alright...just not in the direction most of his supporters are expecting.
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The numbers in this image aren't real.
Also, why would you assume that those people voting for Stein would have preferred Clinton over Trump?
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America's system is a problem.
Yeah no shit. But 2 weeks from the election isn't the time to try to fix it.
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I'll never forget what third party voting gets us; additional fucking choices beyond the dominant two-party system, encouraging broader participation. When a Republican or Democrat candidate loses any race, it's common to see them use third party candidates as a scapegoat.
If you understand that the Constitution specifies “most votes” win the presidency, and you understand the Slaver’s College, and you understand a third party doesn’t exist yet that can accomplish those things, so that you understand you’re deliberately throwing a vote against a demented fascist rapist away then - okay.
That’s unfortunate.
Ahh the illusion of choice. You vote third party and get another Trump presidency, but hey at least you got your morals, eh?
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Every one so excited to back the lesser of two evils and wondering why things are the way they are
Most people that vote third party wouldn't vote otherwise. Assuming that every vote for Jill Stein would've gone to Hillary is quite the assumption. I always vote third party, so assuming my current vote for Jill Stein would've gone towards Harris instead is just dumb and wrong.
Sure when people think third party they usually mean “No, more fascist”
/* in countries with a broken democracy
Me looking at the current state of our democracy and political system. 🤷
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Picture a situation where various political parties vie to unseat the Republicans. With more representative electoral systems, voters could select their preferred candidates, while still counting their vote against the Republican party even if their choice doesn’t win, all without the spoiler effect. Since voting methods are set at the state level, we don’t need to wait for federal reforms; some states have already enacted electoral changes. For instance, Alaska recently chose a more moderate conservative over Sarah Palin due to Ranked Choice voting.
Who would oppose having multiple opportunities to diminish Republican power? The Democratic Party would. In blue states, they could replace First Past The Post voting with a system that eliminates the spoiler effect. Yet, year after year, election after election, Democrats remain inactive on passing state level electoral reform in the states they control.
Republicans are moving to protect FPTP voting in red states. Why do the democrats want to use the voting system republicans prefer?
Its not that democrats dont know about the flaws in the voting system either. Just mention voting for a third party to any Democrat, and they’ll readily acknowledge the weaknesses of the voting system. Comments about the Green Party here will further illustrate their understanding of this issue.
If democrats understanding the problem, yet refuse to fix it, can only mean one thing. The Democrats prefer the country balancing over a fire pit of fascism rather than truly competing for our votes. They would rather this country be lost to authoritarianism then to play on a even playing field.
Party over country at all costs.