A Vote for Nader Can Be a Vote for Gore?

Great Debates
1

I just read an interesting article located here regarding a strategic voting scheme called pairing. It allows voters in battleground states to swap votes with people living in locked up conservative states, thousands of whose votes are utterly wasted in a state like Texas. So here’s how it works.

Nader voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, etc. can trade their votes with people living in Texas. This way Nader gets his 5% in order to earn federal funding for 04, and Gore still wins. All the Texan democrats, who don’t have a prayer of overturning Texas, vote for Nader. All of the Michigan Naderites can vote for Gore, since their personal Nader partisanship is expressed somewhere else. This entire plan can be engineered with some skillful web design, whereby interested participants can register and be automatically paired with vote swappers from other states.

So what do you think? Is voting a personal expression of conscience or a strategic reaction to political reality? Are you “selling out” if you swap a vote for Nader for a vote for Gore, whom most Naderites prefer to Bush?

MR

2

here

If that helps.

Two questions first:

a) Are Nader supporters really latent Gore supporters?
b) Is Nader really polling that well in the toss-up states?

3

Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy correcting me. :wink:

A) All Nader voters do not have to be latent Gore voters. Only those who are need participate.
B) If the article is to be believed, it only requires 100,000 voters to make the difference in a few contested states.

MR

4

Well, I never have thought federal matching funds was very legit in the first place. I’m in a solid Gore state, but I could easily cast a vote up north in N.H. if I wanted to, illegal though that might be. And Bush is my second choice.

But, in another universe, I suppose I’d just con as many people into voting for Nader as I could with the promise of voting for Gore, then vote for Nader anyway.

Suckers! And I’d drain partners for the people in N.H. who would have swapped votes but perhaps could not find anyone.

But, hey seriously, MR (crossing fingers) – you vote for Nader, and I’ll vote for Gore. Promise. What, don’t you trust me?? :stuck_out_tongue:

5

I thought it was gore conning nader voters:)

6

I read a not-meant-to-be-humorous article in a magazine. Its a prediction by the astrologers about the election.
They surmise that Bush will get the popular vote, but Gore will win with electoral votes.
Gosh, I hope that doesn’t happen. Then the astrologers will beleive theres actually something to it!