I’m not refusing to consider it at all–I just don’t think it has anything to do with how a person should vote in any particular election. Future elections are better influenced, in my opinion, by means other than voting, like protesting, lobbying, grassroots activities, and so on. If you are so very right, raising awareness will get you what you need. No matter how right you are, voting won’t make everyone aware of what is going on to you that needs such dire correction. And even if it makes people ask questions, you still have to explain anyway. So it seems to me that voting in this election has very little to do with future elections, unless candidates have a position on future elections (campaign financing, voting systems, etc).
I find it meritless. But we may discuss it if you like. It makes me think of the apocryphal wife that withholds sex to get her husband to do what she wants. That is not a tactic I find especially conducive to democratic behavior. YMMV, I guess.
There is no multi-election strategy. A vote doesn’t “mean” that much. It cannot. You can’t pick up a ballot and say, “Well, this person voted this way because such-and-such and surely didn’t think such-and-such, etc.” A protest vote without a protest is worthless, and a protest with a protest vote is cutting off your nose to spite your face (to me).
Good point. If you’re going to say “I wasn’t going to vote at all, but I’ve decided to vote for the third party candidate instead,” I accept that as a valid reasoning for voting (not that you need my approval, but FWIW).
However if a third party candidate claims he isn’t taking a single vote away from other candidates, that seems like a farfetched claim. Possible in theory, but isn’t it more likely that anyone who would think about the election enough to consider voting for a third party candidate also has reasonably strong opinions about the first two?
One thing that’s been brought up that has been bothering me is the “One vote isn’t going to change the outcome anyway” idea. While this is technically true, is it really OK to allow ourselves to think this way?
You know I just can’t resist when you sweettalk me like that…
Sarcasm aside, for the first time I actually see what you are saying here. But I don’t care about doting and wooing. Just commit to electoral reform and you can trust my vote. Get back to me on that, K?
OK, real slow now. I was asking you for a cite. I wasn’t providing one myself. If you wanted me to cite my claim about the Vanishing Voter Project all you had to do was ask.
Now, since you have accused me of misrepresenting Dr Patterson’s work I will ask you for a cite for that. Do you have any reason, other than pique, to attack my credibility? Where in the book does it state conclusions even approximating your original claim? Chapter and page number will do. I have a first edition if that matters.
And if you can’t manage that, how about providing some kind of citation for your original claim? You’ve been ducking it so long I’ll go ahead and remind you of what you said: "The reasons people don’t vote are varied, but they mostly border satisfied indifference, disinterest, and the feeling that there is no real urgency to vote when polls show that one guy or the other is going to win…"
Did you really miss the part in my last post about my job? Working class people can’t afford an ivory tower.
Before you said it would send people running for the hills. Now you say everyone supports it. Which is it?
( Answer quick before I drop a Kerry joke. )
What I would like to see is where I said any of that. Again you are trying to change the subject. Since your memory is so poor let me repeat yet again the statement you disputed:
“Who isn’t for good jobs, a safe work environment, or a government that serves people first and corporations 2nd?”
Is this a joke? You quote my argument directly under that paragraph.
They would “go left” because electoral reform gains them votes on the left without costing them anywhere else.
You just explained that you Dems don’t trust your base to vote for you and you post this?
You have chutzpa, I’ll give you that.
I wish I could be done with you, akennet, but you have made such glaring errors that I really can’t let it go.
First of all, I haven’t “railed” against people who vote for a third party. You’re projecting your own emotionalism onto me. The only person I’ve railed against is you, but for your continual misrepresentations of what I’ve said and your dogged refusal to understand quite simple premises, not for your inclination to vote for a third party.
Absolutely not.
You took this out of context. Yes, that’s who we’re talking about for purposes of this thread. There is no assertion there as to statistically how many Nader voters think Kerry would be better than Bush. As I’ve said I don’t know how many times now, it makes no sense in this thread to discuss people who don’t think Kerry would be better than Bush, because obviously Nader wouldn’t be a spoiler vote for them. If they are ambivalent as to whether Bush or Kerry wins, then there’s nothing to spoil, is there?
Really, one would have to be pretty thick to think I was making a statement as to statistically how many Nader voters prefer Kerry over Bush. It has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
This is obviously my opinion. Where is there any assertion here as to statistically how many Nader voters prefer Kerry over Bush? There is no such assertion here.
Again, my opinion. There is no assertion here regarding voter statistics.
So you can stop asking for a cite now. My opinion does not require a cite. I mean, my God, man, do you understand the difference?
“Surely Bush must be less palatable to the left than Kerry”
“Nader voters prefer Kerry over Bush”
You do understand the difference between 1 and 2, don’t you? (1) is a statement of opinion; (2) is a statement of fact. I never made such an assertion as (2).
Oh, it’s certainly possible for a third party candidate to draw votes away from one of the other two parties, but the solution, see, is for the major party candidates to inspire more voters, doncha know. It’s not the duty of the other parties not to exist or be popular.
Let’s look at the 1996 election (and no, I’m not going to try and explain why the FEC has two different result for vote totals in that election, other than to entertain the possibility that neary 9 million people showed up at the polls and, while voting for congess and whatever local races and ballot measures were there, weren’t moved to cast a vote for president, which only backs up my point.)
Clinton: 47,402,357
Dole: 39,198,755
Perot: 8,085,402
Phillips: 184,820
None of these candidates (Nevada): 5,608 ← LOVE THIS!!!
Nader et. al.: 1,400,692
The Electoral College is not really relevant to the point I’m trying to make here, so let’s pretend the popular vote decides the election.
If all the people who voted for Perot and Phillips (U.S. Taxpayers Party, who I assume lean conservative) had voted for Dole, he would have won. From your point of view, they would have “spoiled” the election for Dole.
However, it’s a big leap to say that if Perot and Phillips were not in the race, that all of those votes would magically have appeared in the Dole Column. Remember the estimated Voting Age Population that year was 196,498,000. More people didn’t vote for president than did. So where’s this stretch of which you speak?
To expand:
So apparently galvanized by the stakes of the election that they didn’t even show up: 91,481,000 (46.5%)
Showed up and voted for Clinton: 47,402,357 (24.1%)
Showed up and voted for Dole: 39,198,755 (20.0%)
Showed up and voted for independents and candidates from lesser parties: 9,670,914 (4.9%)
Showed up and, apparently (by comparisons with the numbers from the link in my previous post), with ballot in hand, couldn’t bring themselves to vote for anyone: 8,739,366 (4.4%)
Showed up and actively voted against everyone: 5,608 (0.002%)
So, given that the average person of voting age population in 1996 was over 45% likely not to show up at the polls at all, and if they did, were then only about 40% likely to vote for Dole, can it seriously be argued that other candidates really spoiled anything? Statistics say we could only take about 20% of those votes and apply them to Dole. (One out of every ten voters who felt compelled to vote for someone that year didn’t for for Dole OR Clinton, which I find interesting).
Anyone who thinks that cutting back on the choice of candidates ought to (or is likely to) make voters feel FORCED to toe the line for one of the major parties is living in a dream world, one that is not nearly as free as America ought to be. Perhaps it is that entitled stench from BOTH major parties that brings the voters out in droves. :rolleyes:
I don’t believe I’ve said otherwise, but practicalities exist, like chasing Nader voters will cost more votes than it will gain, otherwise I’m pretty sure that such a tactic would have already been tried.
I find that perfectly reasonable.
No. The election was only spoiled if these voters preferred Dole to Clinton. The outcome of the election failed to match voter preferences. If those voters didn’t have such a preference, the election would not have been spoiled.
It is indeed a leap to say that. Even if those voters did prefer Dole to Clinton, they still might not have voted. But that doesn’t mean the election wasn’t spoiled. There are voting systems where the spoiler effect doesn’t happen, and elections find other ways to align the result with voter preferences, however those preferences are measured (pairwise winners, avoid the worst of the worst, majority votes rather than plurality votes (as in approval voting), and so on).
That all those voters didn’t have a preference between the two majority candidates. If they, or some subset of them, had a preference, and their preference would have tilted the election, and yet their preference didn’t tilt the election because of how they voted, then the election was, frankly, spoiled. I find it quite easy to believe that a great number of Perot voters had a preference which they failed to express due to the nature of the voting system.
Yes. Non-voters have nothing to do with a spoiled election. An election only considers people who voted, quite rightly I might add. Voter turnout is an interesting discussion, but I don’t think we can suggest very much about them.
We’ve had quite a few of these discussions in the past six month, in GD and in the pit, and believe me I very much support third parties. Donate money to them. Give them airtime. Most importanly, try and get the voting system changed. Raise awareness to get third parties into congress first, raise awareness, etc. It is a long term goal, but that goal does not, and never shall, depend on people voting their conscience under first-past-the-post voting. It amazes me that people will devote so much time to understanding global warming, to research numbers and trends, only to tackle the voting issue like it is beyond reproach to treat it similarly, and that anyone who doesn’t vote their conscience isn’t being practical but stupid, immoral, or etc. Turn that sharp eye, that inquisitive brain, onto the problem of voting itself. What can a single vote “mean”? Given any election with multiple candidates and a specified voting system, how should I vote? Will that answer change depending on the candidates? Will that answer change depending on the voting system? Etc, etc.
No one is entitled to your vote. If you want to debate with me, you’ll need to drop that tired line, because I’m not pushing it at all, and I’ve explained myself very well without ever using or implying the word “deserve”. The strategy I outline has nothing to do with major parties at all, only those that have strong public support, as divined by whatever method you have at your disposal to divine such things. If that is Nader or the Greens or the Constitution party or the Republicans is irrelevant to my argument.
<hijack>
I see, I see. You assumed somehow that my initial post was referring to some system you are proposing. How you arrived at this conclusion, given that I quoted the OP, is somewhat beyond me, but I’ll let that go.
The problem with pushing a “list the candidates in order of preference” system is that it is based on a presumption that the voter is too dumb to know which way the wind blows on Election Day.
Relevant to my example, you are postulating that there are droves of people who voted for Perot and Phillips, but IF they couldn’t have their choice, would have preferred Dole to Clinton, and this was not reflected in the results. I say that it is upon you to demonstrate that such people exist in any significant numbers.
Not that there a lot of WEREN’T people who really wanted Perot but, barring his victory, would definitely have preferred Dole to Clinton. But you know what I think? I think they sensed what was what in November 1996, and went ahead and voted for Dole. IMO, most of those who actually voted for Perot or Nader or the others
had a very good sense that they wouldn’t win, but probably didn’t give a rat’s ass whether Dole or Clinton won. The numbers that show that the largest number of Americans couldn’t even be bothered to hoist themselves off the Barca-Lounger to go vote bears this opinion out.
I think that within the current system, people vote their minds. No doubt there are some who would have voted for Nader over Gore in 2000, but felt he was “unelectable”. However, it is an insult to the intelligence to say that, in his particular case, the numbers suggest they were in the majority. I think most people didn’t vote for Nader because they simply didn’t want him as President. Unlike many candidates, Nader has had about 35 years in the public eye. Most people of voting age have made up their minds about him by now.
It’s all well and good to propose changes to our certainly flawed system, but you need numbers to show that the changes will result in an improvement of the system. The problem with the system is not that people don’t get to express their opinions, it’s that people can’t seem to be bothered to have strong opinions on the subject at all. Your system does not address this apathy.
My post did not assume you were responding to my “system”. It only attempted to clear up some misconceptions you had about when an election is spoiled.
This is the problem with more options? Or is forcing your political opinions down to a single candidate on election day assuming that voters are too dumb? Or is it neither, and we can probably drop this kind of rhetoric?
Still not getting it. I am not suggesting that Perot voters would have voted Dole if Perot wasn’t on the ballot. I am suggesting that if we had transferable votes or some other preferential or multi-vote system (like my favorite, approval voting) that we would avoid the problem of the spoiler effect completely. You suggest it is incumbent on me to prove there is a spoiler effect. Doing this would require a voting system which allowed preferential voting, and to replay past elections. Thanks, but I’ll pass on that kind of proof. I’ve explained what the spoiler effect is. People who have studied voting systems have demonstrated that the spoiler effect is not pie-in-the-sky thinking.
There is not enough information in a vote to tell. Voting for Clinton, Dole, Brown, or Daffy Duck does not tell anyone why the person voted this way, only that they did.
Generally, I consider that humans beings do not have such exclusive or black and white opinions, and that if given the opportunity to show a spectrum of thought, they will show a spectrum of thought. As such, I feel it is perfectly reasonable that if given the opportunity to both vote for a third party candidate and express a preference on other candidates that have a good chance of winning over their own that they certainly would do so. I find it, in fact, very hard to believe that the majority of third-party voters have no preference whatsoever between major candidates. But maybe I’m just projecting.
It bears nothing out. You have no idea why they didn’t vote. I didn’t vote because I felt quite confident that Massachusetts would go Democrat, which is how I would have voted anyway. Whether or not this was a sound decision is open to question, but it had nothing to do with how lazy I was. Similarly, a husband might be a republican and his wife, a democrat. Knowing this, and knowing that their votes will simply cancel each other out, they elect to go to the beach instead of the voting booth. Perhaps, though a voter had a preference about the candidates, the preference wasn’t strong enough to warrant voting, and yet the person still didn’t like any third party enough to vote for them, either. How many more scenarios can we concoct that have nothing to do with laziness? Third parties have been around for a while, and they have not particularly inspired voters. I do not believe that this is because they feel that the third party just can’t win. Rather I feel that their views are not sufficiently represented–but again, who can say. Perhaps they’ve read the compelling argument that it isn’t worth the effort to vote because the chance of any person’s vote deciding an election is vanishingly small (look for hawthorne’s posts on the subject in a semi-recent thread). There are plenty of reasons to not vote that has nothing to do with laziness.
And what opinion must one have of people’s minds if one thinks the current system is a good one and doesn’t have a real spoiler effect?
Some people have testified that they voted for Nader over Gore because they felt confident that gore had the election in hand, and wanted Nader to get the 10% necessary for public funding. Needless to say, it didn’t work.
Obviously. But that is not at the core of the spoiler effect.
I’ve shown you a trivial example with small numbers that indicate the problem. Given today’s culture, approximately 20% of the voting population can swing in either direction–a pretty small margin, when you think about it.
Because it isn’t supposed to address apathy, it is supposed to address the idea that first-past-the-post voting is an inferior system because it is not sufficiently broad to represent voters’ opinions, and because of the spoiler effect, and (though I haven’t mentioned it yet) because it has a strong tendency to create two-party systems. Interestingly, this tendency doesn’t mean that there will only be two political parties, only that there is a strong tendency for only two parties to compete at any particular level or district (Duverger’s Law). However, I do believe that having a different voting system, one which encourages multiple parties, will indeed have some impact on voter apathy as there will be more chances for candidates to emerge that will inspire different portions of the population.
