Many of us self-identify as something other than Democrat or Republican, but how often do you actually vote for third party candidates? In the "What are you registered as" thread, I relayed how I upset my wife back in 2008 by voting for a Constitution Party candidate in a Senate race, effectively "throwing away" my vote on a guy who couldn't win, and not voting for the viable candidate that I preferred. So how about you--if there's a third-party candidate that you like better than either of the R/D options, do you vote for him/her, or do you cast your lot with the "lesser of two evils" crowd?
As a general rule I try and cast a vote for someone who has a prayer's chance of actually getting elected so that my vote actually counts. I think I have deviated from this only a few times when I was adamant that neither the democrat or republican was worthy of holding the office. Now, that said, were I a member of a third party and really believed in both the party platform and the candidate then I would probably vote for them.
Nearly always. I usually vote Socialist Workers, sometimes Green. I have supported very rare Democratic candidates. I will be voting for a county supervisor who helped me out with an issue I had. He did his job as my rep so he gets my vote. I am registered independent. I nearly always vote on initiatives. I have been accused of wasting my votes. I agree with Eugene Debs, "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it."
The strategy of "hey, this parties guy screwed us so lets vote the other party" does not work either. I voted Gary Johnson in hopes of getting a third party into debates and on ballots. Until that happens, you will have two political parties out of control that stay in business by keeping political hotbutton issues alive.
When third party candidates and parties become good enough to be relevant, I am sure they will get the opportunities to do such things.
Gary Johnson was a fully qualified candidate. Former (and successful) governor of New Mexico. I would not vote for the candidates crandc does, but I agree it's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for something you don't want and get it. No such thing as wasting a vote. If everyone voted their conscience, maybe Johnson would have won. Or maybe Mike Badnarik would have won in 2004. People whined about the wars but voted for W who started it, or Kerry who wanted to escalate it. You got what you voted for, but didn't want.
I think being part of political party is a necessary evil. There are plenty of Republican's with liberal views, and plenty of Democrats that have conservative views but all of them still vote down part lines 99% of the time. If there wasn't R's and D's attached to candidates perhaps they would get something meaningful done.
I've often thought that we should be able to vote for all candidates in preference order. Then computerize the votes, and eliminate one candidate at a time until one has a majority. If your first choice gets eliminated, then your vote goes to your next choice. That way everyone could vote for the candidate they really want, but also have their vote "count" if the first guy they voted for is only marginal.
Ranked voting has been tried. But it is not so good. In the Oakland mayor's race the winner got very few first place votes but a ton of second and third so ended up winning, although few had her as first choice.
Why is that a bad thing? Instead of the person who is the favorite of the minority, but possibly despised by as many if not more, you get a person who is acceptable to the majority. Thus it's better for candidates to create a broad appeal than to be polarizing. That seems like a good result to me.
Yeah, I have voted for a third party candidate when I can't bring myself to vote for the Republican. The last time I voted for a Democrat was JFK. I just could never vote for Nixion. Voting for JFK turned out bad though because that turned into Johnson. Damn!
So you really think the two parties that have created the problem are going to fix them? How many times do you get fooled before you look at alternatives?
