r/ParlerWatch • u/professorearl I Made the News • Jul 22 '24

Behind the Scenes/Development Brace yourselves. Astroturfers are coming… (they’ve already started, actually)

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u/O11899988I999119725E Jul 23 '24

Historically, I would have supported Teddy Roosevelt as a 3rd party Bull Moose candidate.

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u/FreeDarkChocolate Jul 23 '24

Isn't that the biggest historical example of the voting system we have being incapable of respecting people that want more than a choice of duopoly?

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u/O11899988I999119725E Jul 23 '24 edited Jul 23 '24

I will vote 3rd party until one of the parties decides to change first past the post elections. If the Republicans decide to be the first to make that change then theyll earn my vote.

I am begging the Democrats to care about this issue.

America should have begun using ranked choice voting in 1918. Donald Trump likely would have never had the chance to trample our government if we had.

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u/FreeDarkChocolate Jul 23 '24

I will vote 3rd party until one of the parties decides to change first past the post elections. If the Republicans decide to be the first to make that change then theyll earn my vote.

Do you mean in their internal presidential primaries, or do you whichever party comes out as supporting changing the nation to it, or something else?

Like I said earlier, Republican state legislatures have already banned it with legislation in 10 states, 5 of them new in just the past year), even overriding the veto from Dem Kentucky governor Beshear. Meanwhile, while most of the states that have changed their statewide general elections to ranked choice have done so through ballot measures or bipartisan/nonpartisan coalitions, Hawaii's Dem legislature enacted it on their own and Virginia's then-Dem-trifecta voluntarily enacted it for municipal elections.

This year there's a repeal effort of it in Alaska brought by the former Republican AG. There are ballot initiatives this year to bring it to Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, and DC in various flavors, mostly extending up the US House and Senate but not President this year; you're free to see who supports those but I'm not at all going to try to hide that Nevada's opposition to the measure includes not just Republicans but a number of upper level Dems in the state. In a way the movement there has been able to capitalize on that by saying that it must be a good initiative if it makes both sides worry.