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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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I'm not from the USA. We have many Parties here, so maybe I'm out of touch a little.
But is it really that bad to vote some small 3rd Party? I think it's a big problem for Democracy if you only look on the two big parties. Yes it's completely unrealistic that a 3rd party gets enough votes to be the Government, but why be part of this Problem? And isn't a Vote for some small party STILL better than a vote for Trumps Party? Where is the difference to that my 0,001% goes to the Democratic Party or a smaller party? It's still 0,001% less for Trump.
Also, I just checked this Wikipedia Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States And based on this list, some small parties actually have some seats and even have some mayors somewhere. So it seems like the vote is not 100% wasted.
Isn't it better for Democracy to look on ALL parties?
The Party in Germany I'm a member of sadly lost their Seat in the European Parliament this election, but this will not be a reason to just give up. Even with only one single seat, the party actually did much Important work. So I will not move to a bigger party now. I will talk to many people and advertise my party and try to get us back on a seat next time.
Like I said, maybe I'm missing something in USA Politics. I don't know much about your system. Could someone explain to me why it's such a hated move to vote a 3rd Party in the USA? From my European viewpoint, I don't see why not. I'm here to understand.
At scale the US system has too many layers of abstraction. We are not a direct democracy once you pass the small scale elections you mentioned. Those abstractions combined with first around the goalpost winning makes it so statistically the chance of third party success rounds to 0. So if you vote 3rd party in a major election when you otherwise would have voted Biden then you helped Trump because that 3rd party vote's only impact on the election was to reduce Biden's total by 1.
The only chance 3rd party has of gaining ground is if we switched to ranked choice voting as this would allow people to realistically gauge and react to support for 3rd parties without aiding the major party they dislike in the meantime.
Also need to ditch the Electoral College as it is the worst of our voting abstractions that is only amplified by gerrymandering.
The way you put it, I would hardly even call it a democracy. Or let me rephrase that. It's a democracy but a really broken one.
So the system would have to be fixed. And of course that won't happen because it would damage the parties that would need to fix it. Yea... really complicated.
But at least locally, it should be fine to vote for 3rd parties. I see many seats there. You should try to get the choice in the places you can. (as long as the small parties aren't even worse, of course)
Sounds like you've got it perfectly then!
You get it. And in smaller and more local elections, more third party/independent candidates do actually win.
the Brookings institute and The Economist would agree with you.
You are not wrong, but missing essential context. The American electoral system more or less ensures there can never be more than 2 competitive parties in any given election.
In some cases where republicans are not competitive, voting third party may be a reasonable strategy, but this is usually only the case in local races in very partisan districts.
If you want multiparty democracy (which I agree would be an improvement), it’s far more important to advocate for electoral reforms that would allow such a thing than to actually vote for third parties. To do so actually gives up your influence and can be an act of self-sabotage, even if your goal is to support third parties.
Wait. So even with a larger amount of Votes on a 3rd Party, they would only allow the two biggest Parties in the Congress? I hope I just totally understood you wrong. Because if that's what you just said, then this is REALLY undemocratic.
No, I’m saying that the system prevents this from happening in the first place. If it ever did, the third party would then become one of the dominant two parties from that point forward. This last happened with the Republican Party replacing the Whig Party in the 1850s, so it is a very uncommon occurrence.
On the national level, it's wasted. Essentially, the system used in the USA is called First Past The Post - the majority (or plurality) winner of the vote gets the office. No proportional representation. That means when there are two parties which are near clinching a majority (as in almost all national races here in the US), votes for a third party are wasted.
But isn't that a big problem? This way, you always have to vote for the least bad outcome. Because as far as I often read, both aren't that great. If everyone only votes for these two Partys, I would hardly actually call that a democratic choice, and you keep this Problem going and going this way. Nothing could ever change.
Yes, as a silent 3rd Party voter it's impossible to change anything. So you would need to have speak up. Speak about this problem. In my View, Americans are shooting in their own leg my hating everyone who is voting for something different.
Wouldn't it be better to have a third, or heck even a fourth party with seats?
In Germany, our Government even is always formed by two parties together. I think this is really good. This way, one single ideology doesn't have too much control over everything.
Yes.
It's made into an even bigger problem by the fact that the only third party candidates which consistently run for national office, the Libertarians and Greens, are both deeply unserious parties which focus most of their resources on making a ridiculous play for the presidency every four years instead of building up local support first.
Not all small parties that I see on the Wikipedia list even run in the elections? That's weird, makes it look like they aren't even trying. I think they should attend symbolic. Like "hey we are here. We exist" Just being on the Ballot also makes a difference.
But yes, as you say, building up local support should be the first step. My Party lost the seat in the European Parliament, but we actually had many local Elections at the same time, and local we actually won new seats in some City Councils. I hope the people that got that seat will keep up good work and also speak about it, because most people don't even notice anything that happens in their own Councils. That way, we maybe get more votes from people out of that city in bigger elections.
candidates have to get on the ballot in a seperate process for every state. It was actually a big thing this year as a snafu with biden on the ohio ballot https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/columbus/why-joe-biden-could-be-excluded-from-ohios-ballot-and-what-is-to-come/. And not voting for the lesser of the two evils can let the greater evil win. bush and trump both lost the popular vote but got in and bush famously got in due to a court decision about hanging chads in florida. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting . So yes a few american not votes gave us the iraq war.
Most of them don't. Many of them that do run are only state-level parties, not national. Third parties are very splintered in this country, other than the Libertarians and Greens, who, like I said, aren't very serious. Only 4 out of 47 seats in my state, for example, were contested by the Libertarians and Greens.
Not at all, 0%. But there's an order of operations. Work for ranked choice voting, work for outcomes on a smaller scale where a third party can gain functioning influence, work to pressure the Democrats to back away from some of their more fascist-y policies (which sometimes involves wielding threats of voting in particular ways that they might not like), work for better outcomes in ways which don't involve politicians at all.
All of those sound great to me. Working for a system in which things can exist that aren't our current displeasing duopoly actually sounds like a critical part of making the whole system work again. But choosing to have 0 influence on an important (crucial) outcome, risking a total catastrophe, because you wish something better existed, seems pretty foolish in comparison to actually working to make that better thing exist for real (while avoiding catastrophe in the meantime).
There is exceptional nuance to this question, so I will try to be direct:
Essentially with the way elections work in America: the political parties form their governing coalition prior to the election.
So a way of thinking of it is that functionally a political party in Europe is closer to a caucus in America.
Third parties as a result are typically considered as extremists, ungoverable, or something to that effect: right or wrong. Even Independents unaffiliated with a party overwhelmingly caucus with one of the two parties anyway.
The two party system effectively forms a permanent "Incumbent v Opposition" dynamic. So what can happen, which happened in the 19th century: is one party supplants another that fails. (Republican Party replaced the Whig Party over slavery issue.)
Most major progressive policy in the USA originated from third parties, including social security, 8 hour workdays, and women's suffrage.
The major parties became tired of losing close races, so they adopted third party platforms. So no, it's not at all bad to vote third party in the USA, this server is just heavily Democrat.
I don't have the feeling it's just this server. The opinion I also always get on other Social Media is that everyone who votes for a 3rd Party in the USA is seen as an idiot by most people.
It's true, the average American voter holds (academically) fringe and heterodox views on America's third party history. The conventional wisdom among historians and political scientists is the opposite:
That's all fine, except when the election is a razors edge from electing Trump. Then you have to put voting third party on a backburner for a later time and vote for the one option you have.
I won't be supporting the genocide, and anyone who does is subhuman.
I think so, yes.
However, we have never had a third-party president (except for George Washington, our very first president, in 1789). Third-party presidential candidates are not taken very seriously, and usually just seen as “spoilers” - candidates who don’t have a serious chance of winning themselves, but can gain enough votes to cause either the Republican or Democrat candidate to lose.
Third-party candidates get only superficial news coverage, and often aren’t included in presidential debates. Neither of the major parties want more competition, so these things are unlikely to change anytime soon.