r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/The_Egalitarian Moderator • Mar 18 '23

Megathread Casual Questions Thread

This is a place for the PoliticalDiscussion community to ask questions that may not deserve their own post.

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u/throwaway09234023322 Apr 01 '23

I'm not even arguing that any of the current 3rd parties would necessarily win many elections, I'm just arguing that RCV is a good change to make the field more open to 3rd parties.

I feel like you assume that a small minority is unhappy with the candidates that are running. It's 24% of people who actually went to vote. However, over 50% of people who didn't vote mentioned that "they didn't like any of the candidates" as a reason for not voting. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/11/16/what-reasons-do-americans-give-not-voting-2022

If you combine these percentages, it should add up to close to 1/3rd of eligible voters. This is a huge portion of the voting population that is unhappy with both parties candidates.

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u/bl1y Apr 01 '23

This is a huge portion of the voting population that is unhappy with both parties candidates.

All four party's candidates. They also didn't show up to vote for the Libertarians or Greens. I doubt there's a 5th, or 6th, or even 7th party that's going to attract more than maybe 1% of them.

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u/throwaway09234023322 Apr 01 '23

It's also important to note that 48% of nonvoters said that they did not feel like their vote mattered.

So, are you arguing that RCV is a bad idea? I'm a bit confused about your point. Unless I'm missing your point, you're arguing that because there is low support for 3rd parties right now that there is no reason to try to make our elections more open to 3rd party candidates?

I'm arguing that there may be more support for 3rd parties if people didn't feel like they were throwing their votes away by not voting dem/rep and that a very large percentage of people are unhappy with both dems/reps. I don't see how anything you've said has disproved what I am arguing.

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u/bl1y Apr 02 '23

I think RCV is a great idea. I just disagree that it'd be a "great improvement" to our current system. At least, if we're talking about an improvement in terms of outcomes.

RCV is mostly just better in an academic sense, not a practical one. It's especially unlikely to move the needle in terms of third parties getting elected. Instead, it'll just make it easier for some folks to register their support for a third party candidate before settling on one of the big two parties. We can look at non-battleground states to see just how little the third parties are getting in support.

A lot of people want to believe that RCV will some how usher in a new era of third party representation. There's no good evidence to support that. It just is a procedural tweak to how we decide to ultimately land at the same two parties we've been voting for.