Bonus question: How many troll accounts do you thing will stop posting too?
I think a good measure of whether something is moral is to imagine everyone doing it and consider if it would make the world a better or worse place.
In the U.S., most people probably don’t vote for a third party because they assume no one else will, so they worry their vote will be wasted. It’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma: if you vote and no one else does, you lose, but if everyone voted, everyone would benefit.
So, if someone does choose to vote third party, was it the right thing to do? Well, what if every voter acted this way? There’s a good chance the third party could win, and while it’s debatable, it’s reasonable to assume they might be a better choice than the other two.
Ranked-choice voting would solve this issue, by the way.
Yeah, but then, if, say 20% of voters in swing states voted third party, it would let the greater evil in, this being the very immoral choice.
Surely a more relevant measure is what can I do that will do the most good. Voting for someone who is better than the other realistic option, this keeping extremists out of power feels like a more moral option than making a pointless vote.
say 20% of voters in swing states voted third party, it would let the greater evil in
Not in the case of ranked choice voting. If the 3rd party candidate doesn’t win the vote goes to the number two choice.
Also, sometimes the lesser evil is still evil. Imagine if the vote was between Trump and literal Hitler.
RCV doesn’t “solve” the issue though. The fact that third party candidates can sway elections to the least preferred candidate is known as the “Spoiler effect”, and RCV is also subject to it.
RCV seems to be objectively better than plurality (what we use now), but it and any other ranking-based voting system are still subject to spoilers. One thing that can actually “solve” the issue though is rating-based systems, like Approval Voting, Score Voting, or STAR voting.
Yeah, but ranked choice isn’t in operation, so you’ve got to make the better choice for right now.
Also, in that case Trump would be the better option. I would hope that in a scenario where the republicans had nominated Hitler that the democrats could do better than Trump but if they couldn’t, then yes, voting for Trump in that scenario would be r the right thing to do as voting for, say, Bernie Sanders I. that scenario would let, you know, Hitler become the President.
As a non-US citizen, I’m getting the impression that a big number of left-wing voters are voting for Kamala not because she’s so great, but because she’s not Trump. Similarly, a ton of republicans are voting for Trump because they consider it a vote for the party, not for the candidate, and they sure are not going to vote for a democrat because (insert stereotypical grievances about liberals.)
To me, it seem reasonable to assume, that given the chance, there would be a ton of people on both sides that would rather give their vote to almost anyone else but either of these two, but they don’t because they know that a 3rd party can’t win and this would just risk the greater or two evils winning.
Why I referenced the prisoner’s dilemma is because I mostly see this as a coordination problem. What if instead of tactical voting, everyone just voted for the candidate they actually consider the best one? It’s not at all obvious to me that this would still mean that either of the two main candidates would win. This could very well give rise to a 3rd party.
Also, to return to my original point; it doesn’t seem immoral to me to vote for 3rd party even if that causes Trump to win by one vote. You did the right thing, rest of the people didn’t. If everyone acted like you, it seems to be that this would, in fact, lead to him not winning.
The outcome of your actions isn’t in a theoretical world.
You absolutely would be behaving unethically In that scenario, because you took an action that you knew, with absolute certainty, could only result in either no impact at all, or in making a monster president. There is no theoretical outcome where your action is capable of doing good, and there is a potential outcome where you action does extreme harm.
One party favors RCV much more than the other. I know who I’m voting for.
…yes, and then they will pay attention in another 3 1/2 years…
A phenomenon easily fixed by being intelligent enough to understand democracy and the argument against a 2 party system
Third party voter here. I don’t expect any third party candidate to win. My home state of Connecticut is solidly blue. All of our electoral votes WILL go to Harris, no vote of mine could change that even if I wanted it to, which I don’t. I am no fan of Trump.
I vote for whichever third party looks likely to get the most total votes, because of a third party can drum up 5% of the total national popular vote they get a lot more federal election funds in the next election.
My voting priority is for next cycle, to get a third party on the debate stage. That’s what I’m voting for.
Whatever you think you will achieve will be reversed by the spoiler effect, as others said, unless you get people in positions of power where they can help change FPTP voting system to something else nothing will change. until then 3rd party candidates will be nothing else than useful idiots to try to siphon votes from one of the sides
How about getting one single third party candidate elected to a city council, as a mayor, as a judge, a state legislator, to congress? You know, positions that can actually affect change, instead of wasting your vote and time on doomed bids for the presidency.
You’re ignoring the thing about federal election funds. Is attempting that goal a “waste?” By that logic, in a solidly blue state, voting for any major party candidate is also a waste because you as an individual can’t impact the outcome.
That’s how and when to vote for third party.
No one going to suddenly become a third party president, especially if there isn’t anyone else in government that’s the same party.
Russia still has a war to win. It will not stop.
The question isn’t “Will the third party voters stop commenting after Nov. 6?”
The question is “Which side will blame third party voters for the shitty campaign their candidate ran?”.
And both are going to ignore that they literally spent most (or all) of election season running a candidate that was obviously cognitively impaired.
Considering RFK dropped his campaign to join Trump when polls showed he was siphoning votes from Trump this is just a bad take.
They will move the goalposts to whatever the issue of the day is. “Buh, buh… Gaza!”
No. They will continue to ramble on and on about how “both parties are the same”, and bitch about the person who won. A 3rd party can never win in the USA without changing the electoral system.
I sure as fuck hope we end up with the president who will make those cosplaying MAGAs continue to whine.
This is the most succinct answer.
How considerate of them. I don’t expect the whiney asses who’ve been bitching and lying for the last eight years to stop regardless of who wins. What will they do without their core personality trait?
They usually disappear and come back to blend in by either taking credit for a good win, or a victim to a loss.
Only if the money from Russia and/or China and/or Iran dries up.
Yes, just like the few two times.
Bonus: they are all troll accounts
I’m probably going to leave after the election results are known for sure (note that if it’s very close, we might not be sure until all the votes are counted, which could take more than just a single day) - just too much traffic on here and world to keep up.
Third party votes are protest votes in a sense. They’ll still be there, they’ll just protest in other ways.
Are these other ways just as constructive as pissing their vote away…?
Depends if you pay attention or care for what they’re protesting.
Better protest vote than Trump at least
It’s the same picture.
they may stop pushing a phony, failed candidate, but they’ll start-in with lies and other bullshit instead.
