ElvisL1ves, this isn’t the proper forum or thread to address Nader and the Green party, and I’m not really that big a supporter anyway.
voltaire, how does it undermine the voting process? Voters are voting. They are picking their candidate themselves. That they tell someone else whom they are voting for is irrelevant.
Admittedly you are relying on the other person to vote the way they claim they will. So? All that the person is getting out of it is the feeling that someone out there is helping their cause. Period. A die hard Gore supporter is going to vote Gore whether in New York, Michigan, or Texas. A die hard Nader supporter is going to vote Nader no matter that Nader cannot win. The vote swapping strategy is merely a way to feel like you are doing something to help your pet cause. Again, there is nothing to ensure that either party actually does what they say they will. It would be very easy for a Nader supporter to cheat and get a Gore supporter in Texas to vote Nader and give two votes. It would be very simple for a Gore supporter to lie and get a Nader supporter to vote for Gore. But the way it’s set up, the Gore supporter in Texas voting for Nader will not hurt Gore. The Nader supporter in wherever voting Gore will not really hurt Nader.
There have also been attempts to trade votes between Green party and Republicans.
peace, the difference is that Nader is reasonably palatable whereas Duke is not. Pat Buchanon is running, and I wouldn’t vote for him. There is the matter of what the candidate stands for that factors into the decision of whether someone wants to support them or not. If David Duke got enough supporters to get fed funds, then he got enough supporters. Just means there are a bunch of nazis out there. (See Pat Buchanon.)
As for all the assertions that Pat Buchanon’s fed funds from the Reform Party aren’t helping him, again that is irrelevant. They aren’t helping him because the candidate is repulsive, and the Reform Party fell apart because they selected him. If Jesse Ventura had run, it might have been a different story. Maybe, but that’s irrelevant too.
I can’t contribute to the OP.