@Flat
You are right about the utter awfulness of both of these candidates, which is precisely why I decided months ago that I couldn't vote for either one. I knew I could never vote for Clinton, and I simply cannot endorse Trump with my vote, no matter how much I want Clinton to lose.

masseffect7 wrote:@Flat
You are right about the utter awfulness of both of these candidates, which is precisely why I decided months ago that I couldn't vote for either one. I knew I could never vote for Clinton, and I simply cannot endorse Trump with my vote, no matter how much I want Clinton to lose.

You know, you could vote for the party which represents your values and beliefs most accurately even if the candidate is very flawed.

BFett wrote:

masseffect7 wrote:@Flat
You are right about the utter awfulness of both of these candidates, which is precisely why I decided months ago that I couldn't vote for either one. I knew I could never vote for Clinton, and I simply cannot endorse Trump with my vote, no matter how much I want Clinton to lose.

You know, you could vote for the party which represents your values and beliefs most accurately even if the candidate is very flawed.

Or to spoil one's ballot in the interests of protesting a very flawed electoral system. Voting for third parties or for no-one at all helps to produce statistics about the failure of our electoral system, and such things are evidence to be used in a possible reform (as woefully optimistic as that might sound). I'd think that a good candidate you disagree with is better than a bad candidate put forth by your favored party.

Voting for parties instead of voting for individuals is part of why the US is so polarized, and that polarization is then part of why we wound up with some truly egregious candidates this election cycle. Even the third party candidates suck, with anti-vaxxing Jill Stein -- a woman ignorant to the safety and benefits of nuclear power and modern science in general -- and Facebook meme toker candidate Gary Johnson, who evidently has little mind for geography or current events.

Vote for the candidate you want. If you don't see a candidate you want, vote for nobody. (But don't not vote at all, certainly.)

Grumblesaur wrote:Vote for the candidate you want. If you don't see a candidate you want, vote for nobody. (But don't not vote at all, certainly.)

This is a pretty good summary.

I wake up every day and read the paper and think to myself "Out of the millions and millions of Americans in this country who have degrees, education, and knowledge...these are the people we picked to represent us?"

Grumblesaur wrote:Voting for third parties or for no-one at all helps to produce statistics about the failure of our electoral system, and such things are evidence to be used in a possible reform (as woefully optimistic as that might sound). I'd think that a good candidate you disagree with is better than a bad candidate put forth by your favored party.

I agree with this almost completely, except that I'd phrase the first part as "a good candidate who is not the nominee of either/any major party."

Also, this is applicable this year to both the Democratic and Republican parties.

The only person who says "you're just throwing away your vote" is someone who wants you to vote for their preferred candidate or not at all.

Vote your conscience. If a political party wants your vote, let them earn it.

Charley_Deallus wrote:I wake up every day and read the paper and think to myself "Out of the millions and millions of Americans in this country who have degrees, education, and knowledge...these are the people we picked to represent us?"

Idiocracy in the making...

Charley_Deallus wrote:I wake up every day and read the paper and think to myself "Out of the millions and millions of Americans in this country who have degrees, education, and knowledge...these are the people we picked to represent us?"

People who have real skill or intelligence generally don't go into politics because they can usually make better use of their skill and ability in other areas.

It's unfortunate because the world needs better people running it in general.

On a lighter note, did anyone see the Epic Rap Battle between the two main candidates? It was pretty great, who do you think won that?

To all you Americans out there: Get out there and do your civic duty. There's only one person who can lead us to the promised land of space expansion and solar system colonization: JOSH PARNELL. So write-in Josh for president!

Some things to consider. Please read the following two articles

This one first

then this one

After reading both of those I think we'll be ready for a great discussion. There's also a nice debate going on over in the polls section if you are interested.

Let's say you hate candidate A, and dislike candidate B, so want to vote for third party candidate C.

A gets 10 votes,
B gets 9 votes,
C gets 1 vote.

That one vote of yours is worse than wasted, it's the equivalent of voting FOR candidate A.
This is the First Past the Post system that America uses, and is horrible.

Now, lets say they decided to fix their voting system and introduce Single Transferable Vote.
You put down Candidate C, as before, but your second (or 15th choice after D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O, and P) is candidate B.
This time, the initial votes happen the same way, but candidate C's votes get reassigned (because he had the least votes) and their 2nd (or 15th) choice gets used instead.
So now we get:

A gets 10 votes,
B gets 10 votes,
C got 1 vote, but this was reassigned to B.

Next year, a disgruntled A voter joins you in Voting C, then A.
The same results, except C got 2 votes.
Now more people want to vote C because C might stand a chance of winning.



For today, vote for the least repulsive of the two main candidates.
For tomorrow, tell your local representatives that First Past the Post needs to be ditched, in favor of Single Transferable Vote.

Silverware wrote:Let's say you hate candidate A, and dislike candidate B, so want to vote for third party candidate C.

A gets 10 votes,
B gets 9 votes,
C gets 1 vote.

That one vote of yours is worse than wasted, it's the equivalent of voting FOR candidate A.
This is the First Past the Post system that America uses, and is horrible.

Now, lets say they decided to fix their voting system and introduce Single Transferable Vote.
You put down Candidate C, as before, but your second (or 15th choice after D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O, and P) is candidate B.
This time, the initial votes happen the same way, but candidate C's votes get reassigned (because he had the least votes) and their 2nd (or 15th) choice gets used instead.
So now we get:

A gets 10 votes,
B gets 10 votes,
C got 1 vote, but this was reassigned to B.

Next year, a disgruntled A voter joins you in Voting C, then A.
The same results, except C got 2 votes.
Now more people want to vote C because C might stand a chance of winning.



For today, vote for the least repulsive of the two main candidates.
For tomorrow, tell your local representatives that First Past the Post needs to be ditched, in favor of Single Transferable Vote.

So basically, you get to vote for two candidates instead of one and each vote is worth one point? That's pretty cool.

BFett wrote:So basically, you get to vote for two candidates instead of one and each vote is worth one point? That's pretty cool.

Yes, yes it is.

This is the literal best option for democracy when voting for a single position.
However it is still vulnerable to Gerrymandering, a thing the Americans love. So only works if you lose boundaries when voting.
eg, Don't vote per state, vote as the entire country.

When voting for things like the Senate, the best option is Mixed Member Proportionate, you vote half the members in based on STV single positions on a state basis. This is the individual you think will best represent your state.
Then the other half is filled up based on party vote, so if you like the Greens, but the Democrat candidate for the state is awesome, you can vote for both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
CCP Grey does an amazing Job explaining how to deal with democracy, so I *HIGHLY* recommend looking at the rest of his videos.
Here in New Zealand (One of the Two most free countries in the world, according to wikipedia) we use Mixed Member Proportionate, and it really does work. The two main parties are still the big ones, but the Greens and the Maori party are very large, getting a good 7-10% for the greens, and 12-20% for the Maori party.
When you can vote based on your beliefs rather than voting strategically, it does wonders for limiting corruption and stupidity in government.