"The thing is what it does." The math does not care why I withheld my (or just didn't) vote, it does not care about my principles or intentions. It spits out a result, and one person or another's policies are put in place. Votes are not symbols, or statements, they are power.
at the end of the day there are two people who can win the election
one of them is going to
if I have any preference at all between them and the policies they espouse - even if I like neither - the one concrete action I can take is to pick which of the two bad options I hate the least
Because you're going to have to live in the world that follows the election, and would prefer for it to be the less bad version rather than brag about how moral you are for not voting for either of them.
It’s that whole “democracy is a bus not a taxi” thing, isn’t it? You’re not getting one that can take you exactly where you need to go so the best you can get is the smaller walk at the other end, however slight
Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong the choices aren’t good! But if one of them will drop you somewhere you have to walk over broken glass to get anywhere good it’s best not to pick that one imo
Oh for sure, I was just extending your analogy a step further that I’d like to have an option of bus I’d actually want to be on, not just voting for the least painful and inconvenient bus 😂 maybe one of these days 🥲
“If there is no one in an election you want to vote for then there sure as hell is someone running you want to vote against”
I put this is quotes because I know I’ve stolen it but read it so you I don’t remember who from and probably have misquoted it anyway. The idea stuck with me though
With a two party system, your vote is essentially a vote against the other candidate. I’ve sure never liked who I voted for.
Ranked voting would be great. I’d love it, even if it was only implemented in some states for their electoral votes (until we can get rid of those). But until then…
Australia has a nice system where you can vote for someone you really prefer, then express your preferences down to the one you want least. If your favourite can't win, your next preference will count
Used to have it here in London for Mayoral elections (single transferable vote).
Really nice. Meant people could vote for a smaller party, but then the main party they were comfortable with.
National Conservative government changed it back to FPTP as it became clear they would never win again.
NYC tried it for the last Mayoral election, and got ... well. But I don't think the results of that election are necessarily an indictment of the Ranked Choice system.
That's a shame. Never understood why America was a two party system, but that could be because I've never voted on a ballot with less than four options.
America’s a two-party system because that’s what happens to first-past-the-post systems. And to fix it would require such large majorities that those who benefit from it aren’t likely to let it happen on a large scale.
But we’ll see what comes.
Canada also has a first past the post system, but we have multiple parties. Sadly the majority of the time Canadians only choose between two of them.
Still, it's nice that there is at least the option and on rare occasions it can matter, with a minority government getting elected.
Well and succinctly put. I have to explain this to people EVERY SINGLE ELECTION so it's always good to have new words to express this incredibly elementary point. "The math does not care" is a very important thing to grasp and so many just...don't. They think it's about their FEELINGS.
The one that gets me is:
"I don't owe my vote to any candidate."
No, you owe your vote to yourself, and to people you care about who are not old enough to vote for themselves.
People fought and died for the right to vote. I'm not pissing mine away.
No it's not power. It's a excuse to put up with the systematic bigotry this country has and will keep pushing. This country is dead in the water at this point.
If I withhold my vote aren't I just reducing the number of possible votes to both candidates. In your scenario of 20 people voting, if one withholds his vote, then there are only 19 potential votes available to both candidates.
But one of those two people now has one less vote than the other, right? Do you understand this? Your vote is not a theoretical vote, it was for Candidate A or Candidate B. So if you choose to absent that vote, whichever it was, you have granted that advantage to the other candidate.
Or you could vote for Candidate C, which is generally a useless (or even counterproductive!) vote in first past the post, which is why some of us write checks to people trying to bring in instant runoff voting or multi-member voting districts, but that is a very long haul.
It's the relative difference between the two candidates, not the grand total of votes. I do not know how to make this simpler. Whoever has more votes relative to the other person, A or B, wins. If you absent your vote for either, you grant an advantage to the other.
If I was only absenting my vote from one. I am absenting my vote from both. I am decreasing the pool both can draw votes from by 1. The relative difference to get past the post is still 1. Neither had my vote to begin with.
You are not absenting your vote from both, because it can only have one value. You may not INTEND it to have that effect, but it will have that effect. it is bound by reality.
if you're arguing that if you *never* vote that's not true, in that case your voting for the status quo by not voting.
here's the very basic question: were you forced to choose - no other option, no way to abstain - would you pick one of the two, or would you genuinely flip a coin?
if you have a preference, at all, however slight, then sitting out benefits the other option
Suppose Biden would have won by 99 votes, but then 100 people who would prefer Biden to Trump didn't vote. Trump wins by 1. That's the same as if 100 more people showed up and voted for Trump. So, in effect, by not voting, those 100 people voted for Trump.
