• Synthead@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Right, the voting system is bad. I don’t like it, either. However, if the dominating candidates are Biden and Trump, and you voted for lesser Democrat candidate, then Biden doesn’t get your vote. If Biden gets too little votes, then your next president is Trump. You wouldn’t have chosen it explicitly, but it is your implicit vote.

    That being said, if Biden has some strong competition and another candidate is appearing favorable, then it makes sense to vote for them. Voting for someone you know is going to lose is just acting in principle without making any impact on the election.

    • anarchotoothbrushist@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Maybe it won’t make an impact this election, but if people start voting for third parties regardless, the Democrats would be incentivised to do better and/or to introduce ranked-choice voting.

      In any case, people need to stop waiting for elections and to start taking action now.

    • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      You wouldn’t have chosen it explicitly, but it is your implicit vote.

      there is no such thing as an implicit vote.

      • Synthead@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        There certainly are ways to vote for your party that will result in your party being weaker, therefore making the opposing party stronger. Call it whatever you want.

        • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 months ago

          There certainly are ways to vote for your party that will result in your party being weaker

          do you mean like putting up a pro-genocide candidate in the primary?

          • Synthead@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Re-posting a reply for a similar comment:

            The opposite, actually. It’s a lesser of evils.

            Personally, I believe that Trump would deliver significantly more harm than most candidates. He’s the Republican leader.

            I don’t agree with a handful of things that Biden has done. I believe that the situation with Hamas and Israel is much more nuanced than “arm Israel to the teeth.” We’re on the same page with this.

            I can decide that I don’t like Biden because of his stance with Israel, and choose to vote for another candidate. Let’s say that the election is extremely close between Biden and Trump. And let’s say that there is a reasonable amount of people like me, who have decided not to vote for Biden.

            If enough people do what I would be doing, and vote for a candidate that might get 5% of votes or so, then that’s 5% of the vote that could have gone to defeating Trump. However, because the election was so close, Trump wins.

            If you protest the majority candidate in the election, you might as well check the box for your opponent and submit your vote. Voting is a dumb game that shouldn’t be a dumb game, but it is what it is.

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              11 months ago

              the only people responsible for electing anyone are the people who vote for them. please consider whether you want to vote for genocide.