LogFAQs > #979203860

GameReviews posted...

I would put it this way. Who are you most opposed to? A vote for a third party is most likely to benefit whoever you least want to win.

Let's say you're a Trump supporter. You like his policies, but maybe you don't like his rhetoric or you think he's going about things the wrong way, or the criminal charges bother you. So you say hey, I hate Biden, but I can't bring myself to voting for Trump, even though I agree with him on most things. So let me vote for a third party candidate whom I find more palatable than Trump, but doesn't have his baggage. This basically takes a vote away from the guy you kind of like, Trump, and gives a vote to someone who has zero chance of winning. Essentially reducing Trump's vote count by one. And thus making it more likely for Biden to be elected.

Let's say you prefer Biden over Trump, because Trump wants to end democracy and has fascistic tendencies that you just can't get on board with. You find some of Biden's policies okay, but you just don't like Biden. Maybe you are concerned about the Hunter Biden laptop stuff, or maybe you think his handling of Israel just makes voting for him a non-starter. Even though you think his policies are most certainly better than Trump's, or you're at least closer to him than Trump on policy. You decide to vote third party. Again, this essentially takes a vote away from Biden and increases the likelihood that Trump, the person you despise much more, is elected.

In our current system, voting for a third party is equivalent to taking away a vote from the person from the two main options who you are more closely aligned with, but aren't fully on board with, thus making the other person who you dislike even more, more likely to get elected.

adjl posted...

Voting third-party works in favour of whichever candidate has the fewest third-party alternatives to split the vote. Philosophically, that's more likely to favour conservative/regressive candidates over a progressive one, by simple virtue of there being more ways to progress and try new things than to stay the same/revert to a past state. In practice, of course, it really depends how many candidates there are and which main ones they most closely align with, since that affects whose votes they split.

In the US, the observed trend is that lower voter turnout favours the GOP, especially when looking at more politically educated demographics. Voting third-party is functionally comparable to not voting at all, and given that those voting third-party tend to be more politically educated (instead of just voting for whoever their parents/peers do like so many voters), it can be expected that a higher third-party turnout will favour the GOP.

You 2 are forgetting 1 very important thing. A vote for Trump in Illinois is a wasted vote, and a vote for Biden in Texas is a wasted vote, to an even bigger degree than a 3rd party. 3rd parties need to get to 5% of the total vote to be invited to next election's debates and shit, but the 2 big parties need to win the state to meet their goals, or at least get enough electoral votes in states that can split. I live in Illinois, my vote already doesn't matter because it'll go blue regardless of who I vote for, but I can help a 3rd party get to the debate stage next cycle.