(07-07-2023, 07:33 PM)copycat Wrote:

(07-07-2023, 10:05 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: Yes, I understand all that, but voting the lesser of two evils is all we have.

No it isn’t.  You’ve been brainwashed to believe that the only choice you have is “d” or “r”.

Voting independent or third party in our system is nothing more than a form of protest.  And a form of protest with no endgame, at that.  If not enough people do it, no one cares.  If more than about 5% of the people do it, that signals to one of the bigger parties that they need to co-opt some of the ideas, but you never know which ones.  And you never know if they'll actually implement them.  Regardless, the co-opting preserves the two party system. It does not reduce corruption nor does it ever present a positive choice to the voter.  
It is not this way in other countries. Other countries do one of two things. They either give seats to second and third place candidates, or they let voters rank candidates. I think the first idea is not really compatible with our constitution, because there's usually only one seat (say a single senate seat) to win at a time.
So only ranked choice voting will ever reliably present most voters with a positive choice.  If they only let you put one mark on your ballot, you will only ever use it out of fear to say no to the candidate you hate.  It's only when you have more than one mark to give that you will feel secure enough and wealthy enough to give some marks out of pride or hope or virtue.

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