• Hathaway@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    Both parties say third party votes helps the other side. I have a feeling, it actually just helps 3rd party. Especially if both sides don’t want it.

    • Tudsamfa@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Really not that complicated. If a person who would otherwise vote Democrat instead votes 3rd party, it helps the Republicans. So the Democrat politician says it to that person. Likewise, the Republican says it to those that would otherwise vote Republican. Both parties now claim that it helps the other, but whom it really helps depends on who would otherwise be voted for.

      From my outside, proportional representative having-position, 3rd party voting only becomes viable if it is discussed outside of the 6 months before an election. And not in the general “3rd party” term, but with an actual party name attached.

      • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        First objection. Why would the people in power change the voting system that got them in power? Well, the spoiler effect has cost both Dems & Reps a major election before. Getting rid of that glitch would be a win-win for major and minor parties!

        This inference is completely defective. Of course a system has a cost, but the cost to a major party of changing to rcv is in many cases to completely hold decades-long strangleholds they previously had. It’s like saying, uh, “Right now Hugh cooks his food, but that sometimes results in him burning himself, so of course he’d be glad to sign on to eating food raw!”

      • livingcoder@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        The runoff voting downside is incorrect, the “drag the voters up to yellow and watch how it makes red win” example. This is not “see how making yellow more popular makes yellow lose”. It’s actually “see how making red more popular than yellow makes red win”. The movement of the voters is not for yellow, but for red and yellow in a way that gives more voters to red.

        There is no way for yellow to be the only candidate to get a boost of voters in the demo. If there were, it would only demonstrate further that yellow would still continue to win.

        Runoff voting is the way.