Only if you assume their vote is owed to some candidate instead of earned. They could just as easily sit out, like the majority of the US does. The default is voting for no one, thus nowhere does this reduce votes any candidate needs. You cannot assume the default is voting for the candidate YOU like, and that any deviation from that is ‘taking votes away’ from someone who never earned them it the first place. They were never Harris’ votes to begin with.
Exactly! Thank you for using logic and reason! Rare thing on Lemmy these days. Also prepare for your downvotes as a result. :/
Im used to idiots, I’ll be fine. Not voting doesn’t magicaly cause either candidate to need more votes. Thats simply not how math works, it just doesnt add anything. If you have to walk 10 miles and I decide not to carry you one mile, you don’t end up having to walk 11 miles.
No, sitting out is the same as voting 3rd party. You are having the exact same statistical effect.
There is no “default”. There is no “sitting out”. It’s just how math works in a FPTP system. You are actively choosing which of the 2 parties’ candidate to support, regardless of what you choose to do. Voting 3rd party and choosing not to vote both support the smaller party. That party is the GOP in this case.
I am well aware they don’t like hearing that voting 3rd party/not voting is supporting Trump, but it’s absolutely true. They just don’t want to vote strategically, they want to feel good about their vote. That’s much less likely to bring about positive change in my opinion.
Its absolutly untrue that sitting our support Trump. By definition it supports no one. It doesn’t change the numbe of votes either candidate needs to win, it simply doesn’t add anything to either. This is quite literally mathematically true.
Also there is always a default. Default is what happens if you do nothing or change nothing, which means by necessity default is not voting. Thats how defining a default works. In fact, US citizens arent even registered to vote by default, you have to do it yourself. Thats why people have been pushing automatic voter registration.
it’s all about party purity for them.
I’ll be honest here. I’m not a registered democrat. never have been. I find myself aligning mostly with the greens on a lot of issues. but I’m never voting for a green. because I know that if I want stuff that I favor to happen, voting for a party that never campaigns, never organizes, and never puts up credible people who have done the public service work isn’t just a fool’s errand it’s political idiocy. that’s why I vote for democrats.
I know they aren’t perfect. but I also know they know how to organize and get shit done politically, even if they water down their own legislation to appeal to their conservative wing and water it down even more to appeal to republican who will never vote for it but I digress.
the point of elections is to set the government at whatever level to go in the direction you want. and voting for the option that will only win in a microscopic probability but is more likely to make it easier for the party and candidate I vehemently disagree with to win is beyond stupid, it’s purposefully destructive. to what end? it makes no sense.
Nothing is owed. There is the greatest threat in my decades of voting. I’m sick of Dems playing this stupid us-or-worse-game, but this time is genuinely frightening. If I believed a leftist third party could win, I’d vote there. Failing that, I vote for not-the-fascist and continue investing in local elections. The right figured this out four years ago. Why haven’t we?
Great post and I am going to use some of this info in my replies. Well said.
Only if you assume their vote is owed to some candidate instead of earned.
It’s just math. There is no state where a 3rd party presidential candidate will win.
You cannot assume the default is voting for the candidate YOU like
I don’t. That’s why I used non-partisan words and didn’t name any candidates.
and that any deviation from that is ‘taking votes away’ from someone who never earned them it the first place
I never said that you’re taking votes away from a candidate. I said a vote for a third party is reducing the number of votes that one of the major party candidates needs to receive in order to win. The winner is the one who receives the most votes, and that is going to be either the Democratic or Republican nominee (show me a poll that shows any 3rd party candidate leading either of the major party candidates in any state if you disagree). A vote for any other candidate just lowers the total number of votes either of them needs in order to win.
I should have clarified, though, that I’m speaking of states where there is no RCV.
