August 2, 2004
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Ballot Box Gambling.
Those who would tell us to vote for one major party candidate because the other major party candidate must be defeated reduce our participation in Democracy to gambling.
Rather than choose the person we believe to be the best candidate, we are asked to evaluate the odds of each candidate winning, factor in how favorable or disfavorable we find each candidate, and play the card that will have the best combined odds.
Gambling in the ballot box:
While I do not have a major problem with gambling and do enjoy playing the occasional hand of cards, it has never been something I felt comfortable risking much money on.
I certainly don’t feel comfortable using it as my method for voting.
To make matters worse, all the “good odds” options support things that I am very opposed to. Imagine if both the parties were pro-choice or both were pro-life. If that is an issue important to you, would you still vote for one of them?
On a national level:
They are both fully behind Free Trade and the war on drugs. They both support GMO. Neither supports IRV. They both support environmental protections being secondary to economic needs. They both support our unfailing support of Israel’s repression of the Palestinians. They both also support our military presence (to some extent) throughout the middle east. The list goes on.
There are members of each party that do stray from the herd and who I agree with more. Sometimes, they stray far enough that I can vote for them. Their endorsed presidential candidates seldom do.
Therefore, I will continue to ask for Instant Runoff Voting. I will continue to vote for the rare candidate who I can support. But although on occasion, I may break down and vote for the lizard in the privacy of the ballot box, I will never support the idea of gambling in the ballot box, and I will rail against those who would demand I do.
Why do the Democrats and Republicans have such better odds anyway?It is fairly commonly accepted that the more funding you have, the more votes you will get.
It seems to me that many corporations and many wealthy people/families financially support both the Democratic and Republican parties. In doing so, they effectively price third parties out of the game.
I can only think of two good reasons to do this:
A) The success of either party is in their interest. Generally, they fund one party significantly more than the other, but this would make sense if that party is somewhat MORE in their interest.
B) They believe that their money will buy them influence and convince those parties to make policies that are more friendly towards them.
If there are other compelling reasons to fund both parties, please let me know.
I would like to give our politicians and the PACs something of the benefit of the doubt, so I am not going to claim the donations are for reason B – that would be blatantly corrupt and illegal.
Therefore, in the absence of a better reason, it must be for reason A.
The Daily Howler has three more quick campaign ’04 debunks:1) Kerry did not “Vote for the war and then vote against funding for the soldiers”. He DID vote for the war. He DID vote against the 87 billion dollar funding bill. However, he voted against it because there was another version he supported more. The funding bill he wanted passed would have also funded the soldiers. The version he supported would dropped the $690 billion tax cut to $600 billion so the funding was paid for up front. However, the Republicans didn’t support that version and the president threatened to veto it. The president also threatened to veto additional benefits for National Guards, and other provisions that Kerry supported. The Daily Howler covered this in a number of issues. To start, read the July 14th, July 16th, and July 17th issues.
2) A popular current spin point is about how liberal Kerry and Edwards are. As much as I might like that to be the case, it is pretty much spin. Check the Daily Howler July 29th and July 30th issues, among others.
3) Cheney’s claim that Kerry voted to cut taxes 350 times has been debunked by both the Daily Howler and Fact Check.
Another Web Log to check out.
Comments (2)
I think in order to get one of the smaller parties a chance, voters would have to forgo being able to vote for their choice of the lesser of 2 evils. They would have to try to get enough of a bloc to vote enough votes to make the smaller party eligible for funds and time in the debates and on stage. It might take 2 or 3 elections, but if enough people can push, it could be done. It still probably wouldn’t overthrow the 2 main parties, but at least it could bring a legit choice out there for people to see.
It will take years to accomplish tho.
Maybe anyway,
John
If our state were to switch to Instant Runoff Voting, we could have our cake and eat it too.
You basically rank your preferences, and the votes are counted in a series of runoffs, eliminating one candidate at a time.
If your first choice is eliminated, your next choice is used for the next round of runoff, and so on.
http://www.fairvote.org/irv/index.html