if you think you have a coherent explanation how third party is throwing ones vote away i’ll ilsten.

it seems like most people rely on “your party can’t win” and dont engage with how there are effects outside winning involved with american elections. i also get a lot of accusations of helping trump win that break down under the slightest questioning.

Wait how is it throwing my vote away? The ballot is tallied for my preferred party. The ballot doesn’t give trump an edge because it isn’t cast for trump.

By your logic that same third party ballot gives Harris an edge and the two edges combine and cancel out. Or explode. Or something.

How am I to blame for trumps ostensible victory when I don’t vote for him? Are all voters to blame just like me? Are democratic strategists who author Harris’ rightward move to blame? Is Harris herself to blame in the case of a trump victory?

lol. Two party-ailures btfo

Wow, is voter turnout used for anything else?

No. You?

Do you think winning the electoral college is the only effect that a third party vote has?

Especially for a party like PSL that runs down ticket candidates there’s much more than winning the ec.

I did read the article.

It doesn’t make a convincing case that a third party vote is the same as a trump vote. That’s why I asked you to explain how you came to that conclusion.

The article also claims third parties can’t possibly expect to get any electoral votes but then says if they did then it could create a situation where the house chooses the president.

If dems want third party voters to support them and are in danger of losing for want of third party voters, dems can simply pick up platforms and policies that third party voters want.

it runs a voltage regulator inside the cable

Wait how is a third party vote the same as a trump vote, they’re for different candidates?

Third party votes don’t get counted towards trumps total and the president isn’t elected by popular vote anyway.

Yup.

Any candidate who gets 270 electoral votes.

Perot absolutely had an effect on American politics. I already brought up nafta which is the obvious thing for anyone who remembers that time, but did you know that his particular type of outsider conservative populism has been compared to trump?

I didn’t, but it’s easy to see him as a precursor to 2016.

Like I said before, you’re making a mistake saying third parties can’t be effective. One of the legs of the argument against third parties is that they’ll have an effect on the election! Not to mention the obvious truth that third parties have pushed and pulled major party platforms!

It’s better to stay with the mopey, “nothing can change” argument instead. At least people who already believe that will agree with you. Suggesting third parties don’t have an impact is both provably false and undermines your point.

The vote is counted. It gets tallied for the candidates it’s marked for.

I think you’re making a mistake here. You’re gonna wanna stick with stuff like you had before where you imply nothing can change.

Perot 92 and 96 were extensively studied and had far reaching effects on domestic policy, campaign strategy and both gave rise to the spoiler/throwing your vote away discourse in the modern day and were also proof that it was false after people had time to study the results.

I remember after 92 people would spit on the ground when you brought up nafta. They didn’t know about it before the election that year and the deal was all but signed at that point. Perot dragged that thing into the light and that campaign is the reason trump could speak to people’s memories when he said how bad it was and talked up how good the usmca would be (even though it’s basically a continuation).

I like when people bring up the reform party because there were lots of well studied measurable effects and they didn’t come from serious disciplined parties like one might think of psl or something as but from the abstract, goofy reform party. They even fucked up in 92 and had a little will-they won’t-they drop out.

There’s some study or article in the 92 Wikipedia article that references people’s exit poll sentiment that they “would have voted for Perot if they thought he could win”. Not just in passing either, but reaching the conclusion that he could have won if those people had voted for him.

Did they not vote for him because they didn’t think he was for real after the drop out?

Would the reform party have been able to make more of Perot clowning on hw and Clinton if it had been running candidates in downballot races?

On a more touchy-feely level, I wouldn’t be bringing up how the American political system is most vulnerable to third parties when its sclerotic leadership is struggling to differentiate some of its two parties policies.

Not if I wanted to convince people not to vote third party at least.

Hell yeah.

And before then?

Even if the threshold for funding and ballot access isn’t met, voting third party helps get your party at events, tells the major parties how popular their platform is and builds support and awareness.

Votes are used to determine ballot access in future elections, funding, event presence and of course, by the two major parties to figure out where they could pick up an electoral vote or two by tacking a third parties platform onto their own.

Why some parties and political movements even use voting as a means to organize and raise awareness around their platforms and issues!

Have you considered providing them with a typewriter, ledger and calculator instead?

If winning were the only effect that voting had then you’d have a great point.

No ones taking votes away from Harris, if she wants to get psl voters she can take up policy positions they support.

I’m planning on voting PSL and you can too.

They’re running de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to Israel.