• a9cx34udP4ZZ0@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “Why would I vote for a primary party candidate who supports ranked choice voting when I can just throw my vote away on a third-party candidate that will never be elected? I’ve got principles!”

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Because apparently throwing your vote away will somehow convince politicians to move left or something, despite all the evidence that it won’t.

      • MisterScruffy@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        The Republicans move right during the general, and are sometimes pulled that way by the libertarian candidate (or rfk jr). The Dems usually don’t get pulled left because they’re so focused on moving to the right during the general to try to get the moderate republican vote

      • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        There is no other way to get the attention from the politicians.

        And if those politicians are so keen on ignoring you, why would they listen to this? Oh, you voted for Cornel West because you’re “unsatisfied,” literally who cares? The status quo wins again, goodbye. Say hello to the camps.

              • PaintedSnail@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                And what happens in the mean time? Third parties almost always take votes from the Democrats. (That is to say, most of the people who vote third party would have voted Democrat if the third party was not on the ballot.) This gives a huge advantage to the Republican party on close elections. The result is further entrenching of the party that has the larger vested interest in not reforming the system. As a result, any generational movement has no chance of succeeding because the party that directly opposes their goal is always in power.

                (To expand: since Democrats lose votes to third parties, they are the ones who would greatly benefit from any kind of ranked choice voting, so they tend to support such reforms. Since Republicans benefit more from FPTP, they tend to oppose such reforms.)

                It’s all well and good to send a message, but that message will be received by the people who benefit most by ignoring that message.

                The better method is to get people in power now who support election reform, get those reforms passed, then third party candidates become viable.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      Ranked choice voting seems like a great way to create huge political instability. Let’s take the system that has worked decent for 248 years and completely replace it with something less well tested. We already have uncertainty we don’t need to mess with the system more.