zouden said:

But that's irrelevant. The 2000 election came down to one state. Amid all the fuss over "hanging chads" and the recount it was easy to forget that Nader had collected far more votes than the margin.

If Nader wasn't running, there would have been no recount, and no talk about hanging chads. Gore would have won Florida, and the presidency.

Sure, Perot took more votes in 1992 - much more - but both Nader and Perot had the same effect in those respective elections.

Clearly, the electoral system needs to change so that vote spoiling is not an issue. The solution is pretty easy really: enable voters to choose more than one candidate at a time. Dozens of countries already do this, if not the majority of them.

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zannennagara said:

The only way to show support in an election is by casting a vote. If Gore is on the ballot and a voter does not vote for him, the voter does not support Gore.

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zannennagara said:

The only way to show support in an election is by casting a vote. If Gore is on the ballot and a voter does not vote for him, the voter does not support Gore.

Or we can twist the semantics so that everyone potentially supported Nader in the 2000 election - massive pluralities of voters merely supported Bush and Gore more than Nader. Is Nader not an even greater victim of vote spoiling? Why are the candidates who get millions more votes than he does the victims in this scenario?

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Your changing the issue.  Interesting you accuse zouden of equivocating.  First you said that people didn't support gore and that this was evidenced by their voting in 2000, then zouden showed that this wasn't the only reason someone would vote for nader (i.e. they support both and favor gore or are idiotic and like to vote for the winner like many americans), then you argue that the only way to show support in an election is to vote for someone- which is irrelevant to the point of contention.


So what?  That wasn't the issue discussed.  The issue was whether the nader people did or could have supported gore, not whether they expressed such in the election.

And I don't see what it matters whether you are correct and they didn't express support for gore in the election, because this doesn't imply that they don't support him.  Just cuz you don't use a particular mechanism, voting, to do as you say 'show support' doesn't imply that there is no support- whcih was the issue zouden was raising.


I think zouden is correct- the fact that you don't vote for someone does not mean you don't support them.


Especially given zouden's point that the absence of instant runoff voting (or similar systems) is retarded and results in these situations amongst the stupid ('I don't want to waste my vote- It's wasting a vote if I don't guess the winner!   ') and sane alike (It sucks that by using my constitutional rights I have to show support for who I like best rather than indicate that I like one person better than the rest but also strongly favor one popular candidate over another).

zappaisgod said:

Whiny bitches need to get their stories straight about 2000.  First, it was stolen, in which case votes for Nader were irrelevant.  Then it was that the votes cast for Nader were a mistake because the ballot was too confusing for Gore voters, in which case "Turnip" would have done as much damage.  In one state.  Nader drew how many votes nationwide?  Less than 3%.

In 1992, what happened?
Perot drew nearly 20% of the vote, almost all of which came from conservatives.  Clinton beat Bush by less than 6%.  Now that was 3rd party candidate with some muscle.

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it stars saddam said:

Redstorm said:

This is the whole point. A third party spoiling an election for a major party is preferable because it shows that party that many of its voters are not happy with them.  If it continually happens, the major party will be forced to either adopt some of the policy planks held by the minor party or continue to lose election after election.

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I hate that the third party candidates are considered only in the context of their impact on the two-party monopoly.  They deserve to be taken seriously as candidates.

Why do you think it is that Ralph Nader wasn't allowed to participate in the debates?  Watch some of the speeches he gave during this year's election and you'll quickly realize that it's because he is asking questions that the Republicrats do not want to answer.

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Quote:

I don't vote third party to spoil- though I like this result.  I vote third party because I like the candidate better than the main parties.  I like that they spoil because it creates an incentive for the major parties to cator to the needs of the third party voter and makes it more and more likely that more fair votin gsystems will be implemented.

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zouden said:

You're making the assumption that your voting method is flawless. This isn't a very good basis for your argument, because (as you know) in other countries people can vote for more than one candidate. The fact that you can't in America doesn't mean that the American voter votes accordingly!

In other words, you can't take the fact that some people voted for Nader instead of Gore as evidence for a lack of support for Gore, because in other countries both candidates would have received a vote.

The very fact that other electoral systems exist indicates that some might be better than others, and that some, such as the US version, might force people to make decisions about their vote that they might regret.

In Australia, vote spoiling doesn't exist. It's a phenomenon restricted to countries where you can only vote for one candidate. It's simply naive to pretend that the American system is perfect and that vote spoiling isn't a major factor in American politics.

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johnm214 said:

Your changing the issue.  Interesting you accuse zouden of equivocating.  First you said that people didn't support gore and that this was evidenced by their voting in 2000, then zouden showed that this wasn't the only reason someone would vote for nader (i.e. they support both and favor gore or are idiotic and like to vote for the winner like many americans), then you argue that the only way to show support in an election is to vote for someone- which is irrelevant to the point of contention.

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Quote:

So what?  That wasn't the issue discussed.  The issue was whether the nader people did or could have supported gore, not whether they expressed such in the election.



And I don't see what it matters whether you are correct and they didn't express support for gore in the election, because this doesn't imply that they don't support him.  Just cuz you don't use a particular mechanism, voting, to do as you say 'show support' doesn't imply that there is no support- whcih was the issue zouden was raising.


I think zouden is correct- the fact that you don't vote for someone does not mean you don't support them.


Especially given zouden's point that the absence of instant runoff voting (or similar systems) is retarded and results in these situations amongst the stupid ('I don't want to waste my vote- It's wasting a vote if I don't guess the winner!   ') and sane alike (It sucks that by using my constitutional rights I have to show support for who I like best rather than indicate that I like one person better than the rest but also strongly favor one popular candidate over another).

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