"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.
Canada's got a parliamentary system, which I don't understand and am too headachey to even try to figure out, but which alters it all in some beneficial way we don't do.
The UK does it too, the bastards.
Humans love dichotomies because they are intellectually efficient. We don't wanna spend the energy weighing five options; we like to get it down to two.
