There are better ways to stop third-party presidential voting-

[Ken Burch]

140. What is silly is assuming that we can stop third-party presidential voting by berating people for it

And what is also silly is acting as though we are owed the votes of everyone on the progressive side of the spectrum no matter what.
I wish they would all vote for us. I wish we'd offer programs that would win their votes.

Neither of those things are happening.

If we stay with the status quo on our electoral system, we can never get out of the current situation. The existing electoral is irrevocably rigged against the Democratic base-working people of all races, genders, creeds, and identities.


My suggestion is designed to significantly reduce third-party voting in presidential elections, something we both want-I never guaranteed it would eliminate it.

The idea is to create ways to vote for ideas the two major parties refuse to support at levels of governance other than the presidency-presidential races being a futile way to work for such ideas. They would vote for us presidentially on antifascist grounds, then work for more advanced ideas at the local, legislative, and congressional level.

As those ideas build support, our party would adopt at least some of them.

It's all good and it can only hekp us.

If you are against the Democratic Party being open to change(at least in the present), you have to accept there being some other way for people to work for them. We can't base our identity as a party as the official enforcers of the leftward boundary of the possible.

We can't demand progressive loyalty and put strict limits on progressive politics at the same time.

Our party doesn't prosper by doing that.

And it was the idea of our party playing that kind of a "gatekeeper" role in politics that created the Nader phenomenon. Yes, that was a phenomenon manipulated by the Right, but it was based on a genuine popular yearning for a way to work for change.

What I suggest practical, it is inexpensive, and it works all over Europe.

And of course I know how voting systems work. And there are voting systems in place all over the world that accommodate proportional representation.

We could do it with hand-counted ballots, as is done in many places.

And nothing I'm suggesting here conflicts with the short term need to fighting voter suppression. I live in Washington state, where that largely doesn't happen, but support efforts to fight that and to defend the ACA.