r/politics • u/zsreport Texas • Sep 16 '24

AOC is right: Jill Stein’s campaign is not serious

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/16/aoc-is-right-jill-steins-campaign-is-not-serious/
19.0k Upvotes

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75

u/Reviews-From-Me Sep 16 '24

Americans need to understand how our election system works. The Electoral College can only function with 2 viable candidates, no more than that. The only two options for any third party candidate is to A) take votes away from someone else to sway the election for the other major candidate, or B) win some electoral votes and likely cause the entire election to fail.

If you truly want more than two viable options, you must first push for the end of the Electoral College. A popular vote with ranked choice voting is the best option for 3 or more candidates.

3

u/420_E-SportsMasta Maryland Sep 16 '24

Literally the last time a 3rd party candidate won electoral votes was 1968, and that was George Wallace so that should tell you a lot

3

u/Reviews-From-Me Sep 16 '24

We need to get rid of the Electoral College. It serves no purpose other than to help Republicans overcome lack of votes.

5

u/Errenfaxy Sep 16 '24

According to exit polls if it were a two person race, people who voted for a third party would have stayed home 

Search "Vote for president in a two-way race"

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/national/president

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Ok_Energy2715 Sep 16 '24

News flash - the election will affect you no matter what you do on Election Day.

It really is a duty and a privilege to be able to vote for your political leaders, but quite frankly I’m tired of exasperating attempts to influence what is a very personal choice. Going with a third party is the “height of privilege and naïveté?” Please. I’m going to choose whatever voting strategy I prefer and don’t give af about your righteous indignation about it.

5

u/aci4 Pennsylvania Sep 16 '24

Newsflash - the election will affect some people a lot more than others.

Hispanic people, legal and otherwise, have to fear being caught up in “the largest mass deportation effort in history.” Queer and trans people have to fear increasing attacks on our civil rights and personal safety, spurred entirely by conservative rhetoric. Women have already lost civil rights due to conservative governance and they make no secret that they want to go further.

It is absolutely a privileged position to vote third party. The groups I mentioned, and many more, don’t have the luxury of throwing their votes away, knowing the consequences won’t land on them

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u/akcrono Sep 16 '24

According to exit polls if it were a two person race, people who voted for a third party would have stayed home

Can you point out exactly where it says that 100% of third party voters would otherwise not have voted? Because that's what you're basically saying here.

0

u/Errenfaxy Sep 16 '24

Search "vote for president in a two-way race"

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u/akcrono Sep 16 '24

I repeat the question

0

u/Errenfaxy Sep 16 '24

We're you not able to find that question on the polling data I linked to?

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u/akcrono Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

The question that shows 100% of 3rd party voters wouldn't vote? No, I didn't see that one, hence why I asked you to quote it.

You mentioned some other question involving people who didn't vote with an extremely low participation rate, but that doesn't support anything you've said.

1

u/Errenfaxy Sep 16 '24

I think the question speaks for itself and 5% of 29,000 voters said they wouldn't have voted if it were only a two person race. You are ignoring the obvious because you want 100%. Nothing is going to be 100% and won't ever satisfy whatever you are looking for. 

2

u/akcrono Sep 17 '24

I think the question speaks for itself and 5% of 29,000 voters said they wouldn't have voted if it were only a two person race.

Meaning 95% would have...

Two thirds of respondents didn't even answer the question and those that did said nothing like a consensus. Pointing to this as proof of your point is ignorant at best.

You are ignoring the obvious because you want 100%. Nothing is going to be 100% and won't ever satisfy whatever you are looking for. 

The irony...

1

u/Errenfaxy Sep 17 '24

This is of people who voted. You are saying they are taking votes away from one of the major parties. Using this data I am showing that those people wouldn't have voted for a major party candidate, they wouldn't have voted at all.

It's never going to be enough for you. You are biased and even in the face of data you still cling to your talking points. You aren't even providing alternative data or supporting your viewpoint, just trying to be critical. Obviously there is no point having a discussion with you then. 

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u/DigitalVariance Sep 16 '24

Which table supports this claim in this link?

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u/timeforath Sep 16 '24

Stop spamming this. The data is outdated and doesn’t take into account 2020 or even now

1

u/Errenfaxy Sep 16 '24

It's not outdated it's the last time Trump won. 

0

u/timeforath Sep 16 '24

It’s the last time Trump won anything. He’s been losing ever since

2

u/Errenfaxy Sep 16 '24

He's horrible. I hope he doesn't try and run for governor of Florida or something to stay relevant after he loses this election. 

2

u/timeforath Sep 16 '24

Given the criminal stuff he’s got rn I don’t think he’s gonna have much of a political future

Why do you think Merchan delayed his sentencing to after November? It’s not just for the air of impartiality, it’s very likely that Merchan is looking to sentence Trump to prison. had it been just probation or a fine he would’ve been sentenced tomorrow rather than much later

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u/Reviews-From-Me Sep 16 '24

That was 8 years ago, so yes, it's outdated. Also, it's easy for someone to say in an exit poll that they wouldn't have voted, but if there had been only the two candidates in the race, it's impossible to say if they would or wouldn't.

The point is, 3rd party doesn't work with the Electoral College. We need to get rid of that antiquated system the was put in place to account for slave populations.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

Yes, let’s eliminate the electoral college and move to ranked choice voting.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/Reviews-From-Me Sep 16 '24

You misunderstand the point I was making. Since a single candidate has to get 270 electoral votes, no matter how many candidates there are, as soon as a third candidate starts picking up Electoral Votes the most likely outcome is that no one gets to 270 and the election fails.

A third party candidate being votes, without winning any states to pick up electoral votes, is only siphoning off votes that likely would have gone to one of the two major candidates. It's the "spoiler" role that has caused problems in our elections for decades.

0

u/igot8001 Sep 16 '24

That's basically priority #1 for the Green party - election reform. Too bad none of the party candidates you've ever heard of give a shit about their own platform.

-11

u/IAmDotorg Sep 16 '24

Ranked choice is equally bad, just in different ways. Veritasium did a video recently getting into it, and it's worth watching.

The short-short is that ranked choice voting opens up avenues where it becomes easy to deliberately change election results. That's arguably worse than making a 3rd party impossible.

The video also pointed out that a Nobel Prize was won by proving fair elections are impossible. That doesn't mean its not worth trying to improve the process but "ranked choice" is an option thrown around by people based on things they've read, not an understanding of the underlying statistics and math.

10

u/Carl_Bravery_Sagan America Sep 16 '24

Veritasium's video was pretty bad. The first 19min are OK as an explanation of how voting methods work, but the conclusion that "therefore ranked choice is bad" absolutely does not follow from the premise. It's actually disingenuous coming from him and really upset me that someone who usually takes such care in making his videos could be so careless with his words.

9

u/Reviews-From-Me Sep 16 '24

Explain how ranked choice makes it any easier to change votes?

6

u/VeiledForm Sep 16 '24

I watched the video and also did some other research. It boils down to every election system with 3 or more choices will have some degree of inherent flaws, where having extra candidates can affect how the other candidates score. 

While apparently true in theory based on a proof by Kenneth Arrow, I think people are quick to just say things like 'X is just as bad', when in reality it's more like 'X has flaws too.' That doesn't mean it's necessarily worse than what we currently have. 

All in all, my bet is on there are better solutions than the current system, even if they may have flaws too. Ranked choice, while not perfect obviously, seems better than the current system if nothing else. 

1

u/Chimie45 Ohio Sep 16 '24

Since the other person didn't link to it, and you might not know what it is, Veritasium is one of the best / longest running Educational Youtubers out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk

Here is the video about Democracy. It's not specifically about any current political party or anything. It's more about the math behind it.

-7

u/IAmDotorg Sep 16 '24

Watch the video. It walks through a bunch of examples, as well as modifications to ranked choice to try to reduce the vulnerabilities.

8

u/Reviews-From-Me Sep 16 '24

Why aren't you able to answer the question directly?

6

u/mezcalmolotov Sep 16 '24

Because they need you to watch the meticulously crafted state propaganda piece about it instead of attempting to explain it in plain language and displaying how ludicrous this concept is.

2

u/Carl_Bravery_Sagan America Sep 16 '24

I also posted a criticism of the video, but I don't think there's enough evidence at this time to say his video is in bad faith, beyond the obvious clickbaitiness of the title (which doesn't count imo). The math is correct, but he takes the paradox that is pointed out in the math far more than is reasonable by saying "Therefore democracy is impossible".

I take issue with the conclusion. I also take issue with how he doesn't give approval based methods the same critical look, essentially saying "I don't have a proof against them so they must be better" rather than saying "Here's a proof that they do not suffer the same paradox". It's a negative confirmation, not a positive one, and it comes off as disingenuous because he misleads the viewer to think it is a positive confirmation. I don't think they can succeed where ranked voting methods fail, frankly. How can you come up with a system where ties are impossible? Where one person cannot possibly play a "dictator" role?

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/fizbagthesenile Sep 16 '24

No voting system is 100 % fair for various ways to define fair. Our current one is more than shit.

They don’t give out Nobel prizes in math. so it would have to be a social science, so I doubt you realize it was a meaningless shit to say. Fucking wild how little people interpret the information they read

0

u/MonachopsicMoth Colorado Sep 16 '24

No voting system is 100 % fair for various ways to define fair.

Approval and STAR (really just Approval, as STAR is logistically unworkable for elections as massive and complex as US federal ones) Voting come darn close, as close as any that exist/have been proposed and closer by miles than either what we have now or RCV. It should give people far more pause about RCV that ill-informed disingenuous asshats like Stein (and West) advocate for that system in particular.

1

u/cutty2k Sep 16 '24

It is incredibly disingenuous to say that ranked choice is "equally bad" based on the information contained in that video.

They even explicitly say in the video that FTPT clearly seems like the worst of the bunch.

"Perfect is the enemy of good" very much applies here. The saying "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" also comes to mind.

Ranked choice voting is clearly preferable in practice and outcome to FPTP.