Election Reform and the Spoiler Effect

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

What's why we have an electoral college?

Your entire premise ignores the fact that no third-party candidate has ever won a state since 1968.

 

[dblack]

But people clearly understand them.

Then launch a campaign to promote them. They'd still be an improvement and I would support that effort. But I don't believe either party wants improvement. They just want to badmouth RCV because it threatens their entrenched power.

 

[dblack]

Your entire premise ignores the fact that no third-party candidate has ever won a state since 1968.

It does? What about my premise ignores that??

 

[para bellum]

RCV doesn't really enable third parties, it just eliminates them as spoilers by assigning their votes to one of the major party candidates...

 

[dblack]

in my lifetime, only one period occurred where the party in the White House held it for 12 years, 1981-1993. Mostly it was 8 years maximum. That speaks highly of the changing political winds.

What does that mean?

 

[JoeB131]

Then launch a campaign to promote them. They'd still be an improvement and I would support that effort. But I don't believe either party wants improvement. They just want to badmouth RCV because it threatens their entrenched power.

No, they want to point out that it's confusing and has really bad results.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Again, that's not true. Palin lost because many Begich voters simply didn't like Palin and ranked her lower than Peltola. There's no evidence suggesting they were confused. Palin is just an idiot and even some Republicans can't stomach her nonsense. That's how ranked choice voting is supposed to work, and it did.

So, the Democrat wins without a plurality while the Republicans were denied their choice by lack of a primary. I am amazed that you cannot see how this system is an epic failure and was designed as such.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

What does that mean?

Did you mistakenly take a dumbass pill this morning? If you cannot figure it out, you should not be posting in your condition.

 

[dblack]

RCV doesn't really enable third parties, it just eliminates them as spoilers by assigning their votes to one of the major party candidates...

Agreed. But it makes it safe for people to choose them as their first choice, which will matter. It will document support for those parties and give them a chance to build momentum. As it is, people who might actually prefer Libertarians or Greens, don't vote for them because their afraid of one of the major party candidates.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

It does? What about my premise ignores that??

Did you mention that the electoral college prevents exactly what you hope to allow by RCV? My God, you are dense on this topic.

 

[dblack]

So, the Democrat wins without a plurality while the Republicans were denied their choice by lack of a primary. I am amazed that you cannot see how this system is an epic failure and was designed as such.

I'm not amazed that you're confused. What exactly is it you think was "wrong" with the Alaska RCV election?

 

[para bellum]

Agreed. But it makes it safe for people to choose them as their first choice, which will matter. It will document support for those parties and give them a chance to build momentum. As it is, people who might actually prefer Libertarians or Greens, don't vote for them because their afraid of one of the major party candidates.

People are already safe to choose a third party candidate.

If they are afraid that it would help the wrong side they can take that into consideration.

You want to give them the freedom to cast a third party vote without facing the consequence of possibly being a spoiler. Why should it be that way? Elections have consequences.

 

[dblack]

Did you mistakenly take a dumbass pill this morning? If you cannot figure it out, you should not be posting in your condition.

Then keep posting nonsense. I'll keep ignoring it.

 

[Independent thinker]

I'm saying that if Jeb hadn't cheated in Florida, Gore would have won as he should have. Nader was irrelevant.

Your first problem is assuming that if Nader wasn't there, his voters would have gone to Gore. Nope. Most of them wouldn't have voted at all.

Your second problem is thinking a third party is a lesser evil. Let's look at all the third parties of the last 100 years (Not counting the Bull Moose Party of TR)

YOu have a collection of racists, communists, and nutbags who couldn't get a foothold in one of the two main parties because they were so nuts.

I can't name a single third-party candidate who would have made a better president than the two guys who did run, and neither can you.



Nope, it probably does more to perpetuate the duopoly than anything else.



Oh, voters are fantastically stupid. The career of Donald Trump proves that.



It does none of that. At the end, you still have to pick your "Lesser of two evils" as your second choice.




Why bother? Here's how we know that the RCV was a clusterfuck. Both parties have taken steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. And, yes, even though the Clusterfuck benefited my party, I would still call it a clusterfuck.

There wasn't even much of an ideological divide between Begich and Palin. It was all about personalities. If anything, Palin probably would have been a better choice because she has the star power to get noticed.



Or just pointing out that the places it's been used, have not have good effects. So you have NYC, which ended up putting in a Mayor who is now under investigation for corruption, and a Congresscritter in Alaska who doesn't really represent the vast majority of people who live there.



Actually, the best argument against third-party candidates is third-party Candidates.

Let's look at the recent history of these "Spoilers", as you say.

2016- Gary Johnson, who promised not to smoke Dope around the nukes, and Jill Stein, who was on the Russian Payroll
2000 - Commie Ralph Nader and Nazi Pat Buchanan.
1992 and 1996 - Ross Perot. The first billionaire with more money than sense in infecting our system.
1980 - John Anderson. I don't represent my own party, so I'll start my own. (he was the last gasp of liberal Republicans)
1968 - George Wallace. Openly racist. The last Gasp of Conservative Democrats.
1948 - Strom Thurmond (racist) and Henry Wallace (Communist.)

The thing you don't get about American political parties is that there are more coalitions than parties. A coalition group might feel they are no longer represented, so they'll switch sides.



Actually, they are better, especially in areas where one party or the other doesn't have strong roots.

The reason we have runoffs in Chicago is that we did have partisan elections up until 1995, even though the Republican Party hadn't elected a mayor since 1927. The GOP ceased to be a factor in Chicago after Bernie Epton became the go-to for all the racists who freaked out when Harold Washington won the Democratic primary in 1983. After that, non-Democrats called themselves anything EXCEPT Republicans.

Do you have any evidence that Jeb cheated in Florida? You guys say all the time that Trump says, without evidence, that the election was stolen. Where is your evidence?

 

[dblack]

People are already safe to choose a third party candidate.

If they are afraid that it would help the wrong side they can take that into consideration.

Are you just denying the lesser-of-two-evils conundrum? I talk to people every day who say "I like Libertarian better but I have to vote for Trump so that Harris doesn't win" or "I have to vote for Harris so Trump doesn't win". With RCV, there's no need for that. You can vote your preference and still rank the candidates you don't like so that the one you're afraid of is ranked last.

You want to give them the freedom to cast a third party vote without facing the consequence of possibly being a spoiler. Why should it be that way?

Because the spoiler concept is a flaw in plurality voting, not a "feature".

Elections have consequences.

Worst phrase Obama ever uttered.

 

[Independent thinker]

Good for you. Most people say otherwise. Most people "hold their nose" and vote for one candidate just because they're afraid of the other.

And you think ranked choice voting declaring someone the winner with 2% of the vote is the answer?

 

[Independent thinker]

Let me google that for you: https://www.google.com/search?q=survey+says+most+people+don't+like+either+candidate&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS801US801&oq=survey+says+most+people+don't+like+either+candidate&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTE1MzI0ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

But seriously, if you're going to deny that lesser-of-two-evils voting is a problem, or if you're going to try to pretend it's a good thing, we don't have much to talk about. We're living in different realities.

And you think voting for the lesser of three evils is the answer?

 

[dblack]

And you think ranked choice voting declaring someone the winner with 2% of the vote is the answer?

I don't know what you're referring to. But it's pretty clear you have no clue how RCV works.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

I'm not amazed that you're confused. What exactly is it you think was "wrong" with the Alaska RCV election?

Conservatives lost to a party with fewer votes. Not having a primary, split their votes and allowed another party to win. The same thing happened with other independent presidential candidates, allowing one of the major parties to win. Think Ralph Nader, John Anderson, and Ross Perot.

 

[dblack]

Conservatives lost to a party with fewer votes.

No. They didn't. Many of those conservatives preferred the Democrat to Palin. That's why she lost.