Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
news.gallup.com
Story Highlights
- Third time support has exceeded 60%, along with 2017 and 2021
- Republicans primarily behind the increase, with 58% now in favor
- Political independents remain group most likely to favor third party
RANKED CHOICE VOTING
make parties irrelevant
Precisely why they will never let this happen
Yep, all of us plebs want RCV. But the problem is in order to get it, we need one of two major parties in control to make the change. But they don't want to make the change because they know if they do, us plebs will actually start voting for independent parties and they'll lose their power. :(
It's not about voting for a party in RCV. It effectively solves almost all of the US political dysfunction. With RCV...
Honestly, I get erect just thinking about how much better things could be with this system of voting. It's essentially like a unionization for our political system, which is why it will never happen.
Why would the wolves opt to remove themselves from the hen house?
So you gonna just keep complaining online or do something to make them?
Comparison of various voting systems...
https://fairvote.org/archives/alternatives-to-rcv/
I'm personally in favor of STAR, takes how leading candidates fair in head to head matchups against each other without confronting voters with the possible ballot Atlas of a true condorcet vote
This is a core policy of the Forward Party along with open primaries and independent redistricting commissions.
Let go full stv
I want third parties, but before that happens we need Ranked Choice Voting or Approval Voting. Otherwise, voting third party is essentially just taking votes from the major party most closely aligned with that third party.
I know RCV is the zeitgeist, but I really think Approval Voting is better and easier for the public. I'm glad you mentioned it
And yet when I say this people look at me like I'm crazy and tell me "Sir this is a Wendy's"
Seriously, though, Approval Voting is literally the simplest voting method (vote yes or no on each candidate) and yet it has zero traction.
What you need is proportional representation like most countries have
That's why I always mention it. I personally would prefer Ranked Choice. However, considering the introduction intelligence of many Americans, telling them "number 1, 2, 3, etc based on how much you like the candidates" might confuse them. Instead, "mark the ones you like" is much easier.
The main problem with Approval is that it still encourages strategic voting. If a 3rd party I really like is close to beating a mainstream party I'd tolerate, I'm incentivized to not select the mainstream party.
I seriously doubt a Approval would ever elect a 3rd party candidate.
The Center for Election Science disagrees and says that RCV is more likely to encourage extremist candidates:
"Tactical Voting
Approval voting performs rather well in the face of tactical voting. Like any voting method, approval voting does have tactics and strategy such as the “threshold strategy“. Under basic assumptions with tactical voting, approval voting elects beat-all winners (Condorcet winners) when they exist. Computer simulations using Bayesian regret calculations (shown at bottom) demonstrate better utility outcomes in elections using approval voting versus RCV even if all approval voters were tactical and all RCV voters were honest.
RCV is susceptible to tactical exaggeration. This is so much so that when voters are tactical, RCV can degenerate approximately into ordinary plurality voting. Note how approval does not degenerate into plurality. RCV’s tactical vulnerability can also mean voters do not rank their favorite candidate as first."
https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting-versus-irv/
I watched their video about this and I don’t think it’s really that simple. Yes, approval voting means your first choice will never harm your second choice, but your 2nd choice can still absolutely harm your 1st choice. In a situation where there are 3 (or more) approximately tied candidates, voting for any candidate which is not your favorite is likely to harm your favorite’s chances.
Also, their example of a “spoiler” effect doesn’t really convince me. Sure, they negatively frame it by calling the winner party “bad”, but that candidate got more first round votes than the other candidates so it’s logical for it to have an advantage over a candidate who is mostly a second choice.
It doesn’t seem like a likely scenario either, it requires a scenario where voters who prefer candidate A want B as their second choice, but voters who want candidate B have no agreement with candidate A.
False. It sends the message that if that major party wants those votes they need to align with the 3rd parties policies. You keep narrowly losing elections because voters don't support what you do, you'll change if you ever want to win again. People are more concerned about winning every election, voting for the lesser of two evils, then wonder why our candidates keep getting shittier and shittier.
Now ask those people what the third party's platform should be.
Not right, not left, but a secret third position
What if we just took all the leftist policies that Republican voters say they love in polls, but just replaced their names with new names that Fox News hasn't had a chance to program their viewers on? Instead of Universal Healthcare, we'll call it the American Bodily Integrity Defense Initiative or patriot care or some shit. No, no, it's not high speed rail, it's the Uncle Sam Express. No, no, it's not universal college, it's the "Beating China By Investing in Education Strategic Defense Initiative". Etc.
That might help black folks, so it won't work.
Realistically there are 3 major groupings already:
A quote I think about a lot is one by Susan Sontag, and I think it maps pretty well to what you've laid out (just obviously not in that same order!). "10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”
You said "Democrats" twice.
Edit: man, I can't figure out who this pissed off- people who don't know progressives and corporate centrists are in the Democratic party, or Republicans.
Pretty sure you got downvotes for explaining something obvious...
That's what I get for thinking someone set up a joke and trying to deliver the punchline 😅
I like the idea of Schrödinger's party. It's either hard left or hard right but, like a mystery prize on a shitty gameshow, you won't find out until after the votes are placed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position
Do people think "third party" literally means one and only one additional party? Or am I getting wooshed
In case anyone does think that... It does not
How about a data driven platform determined solely by what gets at least 65% majority support in two or more national polls?
Given political preferences tend to fall along a normal distribution curve, rather than drawing a line in the middle and catering to two parties necessarily based by the split toward less popular ends, it would make more sense to focus on two std deviations from the norm and ignore the extremes of each side, leaving it up to national discourse to move the median in one direction or the other and have representatives literally just represent whatever the majority holds.
Now there are five parties!
If only the politicians in the dominant parties had any incentive to make elections fair for all parties. As it stands, the dominant parties have too many systems in place to give themselves advantages.
Rank choice voting seems like an obvious upgrade to our current voting system but is nowhere to be found other than a couple states.
Because the two "private parties" have an insane amount of control over our political system.
And both of them count on getting a large amount of votes because people hate the other side.
If there's literally any viable third option it fucks their system up, which would take power away from the people leading those private organizations
For example, say a far right party shows up. That hurts republicans, but it means Dems would win in landslides. Once that happens, Dem voters are going to start demanding things get done. Which means we're suddenly going to have more Manchin's voting against the party. Leading to increased primary challenges and maybe even a viable progressive party.
Both parties have a bunch of reasons to keep the status quo
There’s like 12 imperfect voting systems that are still light years better than our current system. I wish we would just pick one and roll with it already, even if it’s a temporary fix.
Approval voting is mathematically sane, rewards candidates that are broadly acceptable rather than extremists, and is easy to explain to voters: "Vote for every candidate whom you would be okay with."
Candidates get more votes by building big tents than fanatical bases; voters maximize their power by honestly representing their views, and (unlike IRV) there's no case where thinking better of a candidate will lead you to vote in a way that causes that candidate to lose.
Why stop at three parties. We need like seven.
We need Ranked Choice Voting at all levels including the presidency before we can have lots of different parties.
I'm still annoyed that the Massachusetts ballot question on RCV failed to pass because of the unclear phrasing
You would need to get rid of the "first past the pole" system anyway to allow for other parties to have an actual chance. As soon as that's done, more parties can easily be done.
But well, the people who would need to make that happen are the same people who currently benefit from the system as it is.
FYI it's first past the post, not pole.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
Whoops. Thanks for the correction.
I'm not from America so I have no idea how this party system works, but the point here is I love parties 🎊
Let me educate you:
It doesn't!
Basically, we're only allowed 2 parties per year, and if you want any more, you have to buy a subscription, or else the party police will take away your party privileges. We're hoping that with enough complaints, they'll allow us another party before having to pay.
Well, you see, we have the party of empathy that caters to big business, and then we have the other one that was once more traditional and is now kind of crazy that caters to big business.
Would love a third and a fourth and a fifth party. Unfortunately, that doesn't work in a winner-take-all system based on the Electoral College.
Yeah, I feel like any 3rd party is just there to siphon votes away from one of the other two parties. We need a change to the system, along with additional parties, so that it's not just tilting the balance back towards one of the top two. I wish we could also somehow decouple Supreme Court nominations from the Presidency, or add additional justices to make it more representative. As it is, we've got a ridiculously small group of nine people making decisions that affect the lives of hundreds of millions.
A third party in the US would just replace one of the 2 existing parties so within one or two election cycles we'd be back to two anyway. And with the way the parties are acting currently it would probably be the Republican party to collapse and be replaced.
And with the direction the Republican base is going, whatever party replaces the GoP is probably gonna think Hitler's biggest problem was his accent.
Yes, this 58% Republican support isn't "Libertarians" finally smartening up and realizing the neocons want a police state, it's Trumpers who want the Trump Dynasty.
Because the tea party and libertarians are such awesome options. How about no parties and ranked choice voting.
Yet talk about voting 3rd party and get attacked by straight ticket absolutist
Yep. Because US isn't multiparty system yet, and just voting 3rd party in president elections is not viable and not smart. It doesn't mean that people don't want US to be multiparty system
Pasting my comment from further down the thread
False. It sends the message that if that major party wants those votes they need to align with the 3rd parties policies. You keep narrowly losing elections because voters don't support what you do, you'll change if you ever want to win again. People are more concerned about winning every election, voting for the lesser of two evils, then wonder why our candidates keep getting shittier and shittier.
Primaries are for sending your message. The actual election needs to be handled as harm reduction considering the options are mashed potatoes personified vs literal fascists. Neither is desirable but one is far more undesirable than the other.
Primaries do fuck all. If people are running for 3rd parties what is a dem or republican primary going to do?
That relies on the idea that those major parties care more about winning than the policies they are currently pushing.
I don't know too much about the US but if winning is not too important to that party voting for someone else won't do a thing.
Another option could be that party believes they will lose more votes than gain them with the policies of that 3th party.
Does the GOP still count as a political party? What is their platform, anyways? I don't think "install a dictator and oppress minorities" counts as a platform. Point is, maybe we should look at getting a second political party first. One that can actually represent conservatives.
The Republican Party is representing conservatives better than it ever has. Installing a dictator and oppressing minorities is what conservatives genuinely want, and always have wanted.
If by conservatives you mean Americans who describe themselves as conservatives.... that's a ridiculous claim. I don't think I've ever met a Republican who openly wanted a dictator. I'm sure they exist, but it's not the majority view within Republican voters.
If you mean something else, please define what you mean by conservative.
The key weasel-word there is "openly." Even in your rebuttal, you tacitly admit I'm right.
In supporting trump, they support someone who would gladly take that role if he could. I agree.
But the contradiction is deep within themselves not just held for outsiders to see. They aren't lying when they say they support democracy and say they support trump at the same time. They're contradicting themselves, but they aren't lying. I don't know why that happens, but I guess they have been deceived.
But it's important to have that distinction, otherwise we dehumanize millions of people, and destroy hope of showing them the truth.
You've touched on a major issue which is that many Republicans do NOT think that they are openly supporting a dictator, they don't realize the danger.
I'm guessing they're caught off guard by the fact that these acts (which resemble an attempt to establish a dictatorship) ARE being done fully in the open.
How else can you succinctly describe the brazen, persistent, and unprecedented attempts to overthrow the results of a democratic election? What about their published plan to fire employees of the federal government (who are not political appointees) and replace them with loyal sycophants?
It seems like a move towards some kind of dictatorship to me. If you're working to hold on to power despite the votes of millions of people we have a word for that: dictator.
I can only hope that this turns out to be some kind of clever plot by the Republican party and they don't actually still support Trump. Maybe the people who still say they support Trump despite his naked attempts to become a dictator are just trying to "own the libs" some more and don't actually want him as dictator? Maybe the party leadership knows that Trump is done and they just need him to throw his support behind someone else before he gets thrown in jail and they too recognize the danger?
I can agree that Trump and those like him are moving towards that kind of power structure.
And yes that means that those who support trump and deny that want a dictatorship and at some level contradicting themselves.
But that is a different thing tham actually wanting a dictatorship.
Misrepresenting people will get us no where. It will dehumanize those we disagree with and will create enemies from those who could be allies.
At a certain point, it becomes hard to separate the fascists from the moderates, and it ceases to become a misrepresentation to call Republicans fascists.
It's the same as with the police... a few bad apples spoil the bunch. If these organizations don't start strongly denouncing the bad apples, then it's perfectly valid to regard the entire group as spoiled.
Let's see more moderate Republicans denounce Trump, and louder. Let's see some moderate Republicans willing to compromise with Democrats to get legislation passed instead of being held hostage by the extremists in their own party. Let's see more people like Romney and Liz Cheney calling it like it is.
When that starts happening on a larger scale, then maybe it will be a misrepresentation to refer to Republicans as fascists or supporting a dictator.
I think it's a good idea to separate the politicians and party leaders from the rank-and-file members.
The organization knows what it is they are doing. But the members.... I think of lot of them are just completely deceived in various ways about various things.
So when someone says "republicans want a dictatorship" it can be true in one sense, and nonsense in another.
Regardless of what side your on as a Canadian I'd warn you that you need ranked voting for this kind of thing to work. We don't have that here.
We have one prominently right party and 2 left parties. This heavily skews the votes towards the right as left votes are being split between 2 parties. Often as a left voter you have to vote for the more popular party even if you don't like them in order to keep the right leaning party from winning.
Ranked voting would fix this issue but neither of the 2 popular parties on eatch side, who can fix this want to fix it. Both the popular left and right parties work to supress all other parties.
If your not getting ranked voting that 3rd party will only exist to split the vote for whatever side its on.
I'd argue the situation is even more complicated in Canada Federal politics than you suggested. There are many ridings where the Green Party is a viable option and splits the vote on the left even further. That's before we get into Quebec and the complications the PQ adds to the mix.
This is true. Green party was pretty big in my hometown and the local representative was great. But it was considered a "waste of a vote" to vote on them so everyone left leaning often voted for the liberals out of fear that the conservatives whould get in if they didn't.
A third party would be an improvement. But, really, parties are the problem.
There are other parties, they just don’t do well enough and the electoral college is allowed to vote independently of voters
Careful. Heavily promoted Libertarian and Green candidates coupled with a relatively unpalatable Democrat is how we got Trump.
As long as the US sticks to it's long outdated and undemocratic FPTP voting model, you won't see a relevant third party in congress.
Just remember - with first past the post third party is structurally prevented from rising. Get busy with local election reform in your state: look for ranked choice or approval voting initiatives with some steam
Structurally prevented from rising, but still can act as a spoiler. If a person votes for a left leaning third party candidate instead of Biden, they are making it more likely that Trump (or whoever the Republican nominee is) will win.
I do want strong third parties, but we need Ranked Choice Voting or Approval Voting first.
Yes. My point exactly. I think young people get frustrated being told 3rd party is a wasted vote and do it out of a sense of rebellion. Real rebellion is attacking first past the post
And what is 63% more of nothing? Almost nothing!
Previous elections beg to differ
Republicans would do anything to save the republic, except vote for a Democrat. 14a3 and we can be rid of Trump and Biden both.
Mostly due to embarrassed republicans who want a new republican party
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/green_partys_jill_stein_cheri_honkala
obama and biden had security chain the third party candidate to a chair during the 2016 election for wanting to be included
Murica will never allow more than the demopublican party
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/?ruling=true
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic
But what about no parties? I'm for no parties and maybe a little bit of nuance (gasp!) in American political discussion.
Given that Republicans are primarily behind these results I imagine they want a party more dedicated to the ideology of national socialism.
So, if Trump goes to jail before the republican convention, we might see them Nominate the runner up, and a third party run by Trump might split the vote?
It's funny how the founders were so concerned about political factions forming and basically put in all the safeguards they could think of to prevent it.
75% of independents, 58% of Republicans, 46% of Democrats
If only people voted for what they wanted instead of against what they were scared of because that number is more than enough for a political shift even if there were two alternative parties, one to each main one. The 'wasted vote' propagand is doing more work keeping republicans in charge than the supreme court is. Since more republicans than democrats want a third party, so the only worry should be that too many democrats get elected if we tried.
No it’s not. No third party has anywhere close to a meaningful support level to start talking about the system being the reason. Not only are they nowhere close, they run unqualified or failed two party system candidates with untested or even well thought out ideas and use the entire thing as largely a grift to sell books or gain klout. Recently party officials have even run because no serious candidate actually tries to win any national office at all.
No ones gonna fund a party no ones voting for. Not to mention they get federal funding money if they reach a certain vote threshold, a threshold we can hit to fix those problems you speak of. The numbers of voters are there, but if you like the duopoly just say that but you're not gonna make third parties viable by voting for the two parties that benefit from there not being large third parties. If you don't want third party choices to be viable sure what you say makes sense, but you cannot keep voting for the same thing and expect a different outcome. Its either stop supporting the duopoly or resign yourself to voting for a duopoly candidate for the ret of your life.
The big problem is that the First Past The Post system always devolves into 2 parties. Let's say a Progressive Party launched tomorrow and got 25% of the left leaning votes. Some of those people would be folks who didn't vote before, but many would be Democrats who feel this party represents them better.
This isn't a bad thing in and of itself. People should be able to vote for parties that represent them the best. I'd be upset if my only ballot choices were "Classic Republican" or "MAGA" because neither would represent my views.
However, remember that many of the hypothetical Progressive party's voters would come from Democrat voter rolls. This would mean that Democrat support would drop. Again, not a bad thing but itself. Keep up with the times or get left behind.
The problem comes when the Democrats drop so low that Republicans start winning elections due to the Progressives pulling votes away. Maybe this is all temporary and would eventually right itself when the Progressive Party becomes the dominant party. Still, there would be a stretch of time when Republicans would rule nearly uncontested.
Just looking at Congress, imagine a Congress that was 70% Republican, 15% Democrat, and 15% Progressive. Items like a national abortion ban, banning any mention of LGBTQ, shooting illegal immigrants on sight, and arresting liberals for speaking up would have a shot at passing and wouldn't be able to be stopped. Even if the situation righted itself eventually and the Progressive Party took control by enough to enact their agenda, they'd have a massive mess to clean up.
That's why we need Ranked Choice Voting or Approval Voting first. It would let third parties grow without taking votes from the closely aligned major party.
if they didn’t hit the threshold in 2020 they’ll never hit it. If they had any desire to actually govern they would have put more effort into their candidates too. Jill Stein was less qualified to be President than Trump, and that’s saying a lot. She literally wasn’t qualified enough to run a medium size organization. It was a complete joke how she went around and agreed with every crackpot far-left conspiracy theory in her town halls because she couldn’t risk either upsetting any voter or possibly crossing her questionable Russian backing. Not saying she was a Russian plant, I think she was much more a useful idiot than anything. Gary Johnson didn’t know so many basic facts that he should have known it was clear he just ran to keep his name out there. We see this time and time again. Nader was the last genuine one to run and even he figured out he was accomplishing the opposite of what he wanted to eventually.
Wow it almost seems like the only people who can afford to run third party are those who have financial wealth from somewhere other than the party they represent and therefore have ulterior motives. Shocking, I wonder if there's some way to get them public funding so they could get better candidates and smoother organizations.
Are you advocating that people or groups who have done basically nothing should get federal funding to run for President? Sounds like a great grift.
Im suggesting challenging them so they have a reason to not be such shitty parties. Are you suggesting the current system is not a grift? May I direct you attention to Trumps PPP loans, or even Biden not restoring the taxes the wealthy pay to what they were in the Obama era, effectively sitting at a compromise between Trump and Obama. Since HW Bush its been R, D, R, D over and over and yet we keep ratcheting further right in this country. If that's fine with you just say so, but I advocate for anything that challenges that because it's not like we have all the time in the world to let the problem work itself out, we're literally on an environmental timer and every vote for the duopoly just guarantees no challenges to the powers that maintain that destruction are challenged. More republicans would lose votes over this than democrats too according to the polls in this very article, so they are very thankful for people like you ensuring that the only choice for people who dont vote democrat is them.
Plenty of representatives in Congress right now are there because of grassroots campaigns. Third-party candidates could get elected without major backing, but they for some reason act like it's impossible. And that's the problem with third-party supporters: you all want all the clout and recognition of the major parties, without decades of putting in the footwork to get there. Just saying "We're here! Vote for us!" isn't gonna cut it.
When a third party creates a platform with clearly-defined policies and objectives, ideas on how to accomplish those objectives, and puts in effort to win local and state elections, then they'd be considered a viable alternative. But when a party only pops up every four years and whinges about being taken seriously... it's obvious they're nothing but a spoiler.
I firmly believe they just want to complain without ever having the responsibility of governing. It’s easy to criticize and never needing to test your own solutions.
Literal math says you're wrong. Spoilers exist, and FPTP systems don't allow third parties and also suck ass.
AND results are on a sample too small to be significant.
My guy, do you even know the point of statistics?
AND it's a stupid poll anyway, because most Americans don't even understand the question as asked.
It's kind of shocking because Gallup definitely knows better than to ask questions like this
If any of you actually want to work towards a solution to this look into Forward Party. Forward Party is trying to make third parties actually viable through ranked-choice voting and open, nonpartisan primaries. Once states move past First Past the Post voting, it will actually be possible to vote for third parties without acting as a spoiler.
Not left, or right, but forward! It's a scam, mate. Same as no labels.
Feel free to dismiss any new idea with baseless name calling if you want.
Unlike Forward Party, No Labels is actually funded and made up of mainstream US politicians and interest groups. No Labels is an establishment group pushed by right wing(republican) corporate interests. Forward Party is an outsider third party that is ignored by the established media outlets because they don't control it.
The linked video assumes the left right spectrum is communism vs capitalism which is NOT how it is used in the US. In the US left is dems and right is repubs to the general population. That is the meaning of Forward's Slogan in this context.
They are saying both of the democratic and republican parties are wrong and we need a different approach that does not conform to party lines. That is exactly what the OP shows.
I watched interview on mainstream media about the forward party. Yang refused to be nailed to any position, and wouldn't say that maybe self-described Nazis shouldn't have a place in his party. So, it wasn't that the establishment is trying to hide it, they just aren't a thing of any substance.
What interview was that? I would appreciate a source.
I don't exactly trust most mainstream corporate outlets to not take the statements out of context.
That is your opinion and a rather ill-defined one. What do you mean by they aren't a thing of substance? It's not exactly like any of US politics is filled with currently filled with 'substance' anyway.
Their stance is that the 2 major parties aren't representative of the people's wishes. Their solution to that problem is largely the same solution proposed and massively upvoted in this thread: voting reform in the form of Racked Choice Voting and Nonpartisian Primaries.
THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
look, we became a global military and economic superpower under the two-party system.
We built the strongest middle class in history under the two-party system.
We ended segregation, and made huge progress in LGBTQ rights under the two-party system.
Solving our country's problems do not require more political parties. And the last time liberals tried this, Ralph Nader's spoiler party gave The election to George W. Bush, instead of Al Gore.
That's the Iraq War. That's the 3 trillion dollar giveaway to the ultra rich. That's blocking stem cell research. That's years of accelerated climate change. Years of no movement on healthcare.
No. Fuck that.
If you want to change things, take a note from the Republicans: change comes from WITHIN your party.
If we'd picked Bernie instead of Hillary, the Democrats would have become the liberal party we need.
Unfortunately we don't have a Presidential primary this year, when we desperately need one. So our choice is Biden or ... Full-on fascism.
Have to strongly disagree. If there are going to be political parties, the more the better.
You seem to make my point here. You don't think more parties are needed, but you want to keep pushing the "vote for my guy because the other guy is a monster" line. Sorry, but I'm not going to vote for someone based on who they are not. You point out there are only two shitty choices after stating that we don't need any more choices...
Biden isn't my guy. I don't like Biden. But Trump literally tried to overthrow our democracy.
It's no contest.
To be fair, it was the other of the two right-wing coups the US has suffered in the last few decades -- the Brooks Brothers Riot -- that gave him that.
the supreme courrt gave the election to bush. nader had nothing to do with that.
SCOTUS gave the only reasonable answer under the circumstances. The deadline for certifying the election is enforceable and the entire state has to be counted under the same standards, not a separate, different standard for places one candidate wants to challenge. Denying either of those would be a terrible idea for reasons that extend well beyond 2000, and if you accept both of those premises then there's no other real answer, as there wasn't time to recount the entire state under a new standard before the deadline.
The fallout of that same decision is why Trump had to give up on legal challenges against the election when he did in favor of protests and planning that exceedingly poorly thought out attempt at an insurrection.
the circumstances being that they wanted another Republican president, and they owed his dad a favor anyway.
The circumstances being that one candidate wanted to recount parts of the state under different rules than the rest of the state, and wanted to extend that process past when state law said the process had to be finished. The entire SCOTUS decision was built on the idea that state election deadlines are valid and equal protection requires votes be counted under the same standards statewide.
Which of those premises do you disagree with, and would you have been OK with other candidates making full use of it in later elections, even if it might have led to Biden losing to a second term of Trump and still potentially might have left Bush as the winner in 2000?
you talk about it like precedent matters and they don't just do what they want.
the Supremes can sing any song they want. I know whose tune they dance to.
There was nothing reasonable about what they did. They halted the counting, and then said, "oh we don't have time to finish the counting!"... Read the dissent for that opinion, you'll see that all the non-conservatives on the court were outraged.
The decision was based on two things:
Which of those do you disagree with?
Sure, they halted Gore's last recount. But let's consider for a moment the counterfactual where they didn't stop Gore's last recount, but still made the same final ruling. In that case, it wouldn't have mattered because that last recount was only for part of the state and was done under a different standard than the rest of the state and so would not have been valid because accepting it would have violated equal protection unless the entire state was recounted under that standard, and there was no way to recount the rest of the state under the deadline because despite the case being extremely quick for SCOTUS, the ruling was still only released 2 hours before said deadline.
The court could have allowed each county to operate in good faith in choosing any counting method that reflected voter intent, and they could have ruled that both candidates engage transition teams simultaneously so that either candidate would be prepared to take office, and let the count proceed for a couple more weeks without damage to the winner.
That's just one of many solutions that would have allowed the voters to decide the election.
Election procedures are explicitly a matter of state law, unless the state delegates that authority to the counties or even individual towns. Specifically so two people producing identical ballots aren't treated as having different votes depending on which town they are from. You apparently support letting each county make up it's own methods so long as those methods sound reasonable?
You don't seem to understand the timeline here, or else believe that all election deadlines should have been ignored and deemed unenforceable until when? Until no candidate wants to recount any part of any state under any new standard they can come up with? Until a count was arrived at where Gore would win?
Each state has to produce paperwork officially establishing the slate of electors at least 6 days before the meeting of electors (in 2000 this would be 12/12). The meeting of electors is federally mandated to happen on the 1st Monday after the 2nd Wednesday of December (in 2000 this would be 12/18). Electoral votes are required to be in the hands of Congress by the 4th Wednesday of December (in 2000 this would be 12/27). Congress then officially reviews the vote (and also votes if no candidate hits the required number of electoral votes) on Jan 6, and the current President's term ends at noon on Jan 20.
Two weeks from 12/12 (the SCOTUS decision) is literally the day before the electoral votes have to be in the hands of Congress, eight days after the electoral votes was supposed to have already happened, and two weeks after the state government is supposed to produce the official paperwork about who the slate of electors is.
The absolute best case for Florida doing another manual recount in 2000 would be if they could have done a manual recount of all legally cast votes statewide, but there was only a 4 day window to complete that in from the point that the recount Bush requested an injunction against was called for. From Friday to Tuesday to establish what standards are used to evaluate votes, recount everything, have it completed and the results certified by the state. That...wasn't going to happen any way you cut it.
The first round of Florida recounts were entirely in line with both Florida and federal law, aside from running well beyond state deadlines for their completion and the Florida Supreme Court extending those deadlines (which also got vacated by SCOTUS - apparently changing clear deadlines set in law is less "interpreting the law" and more making it up from scratch to serve your agenda).
Bush's injunction and the recount being killed basically saved us from SCOTUS having to answer questions like "what happens if a state fails to approve a slate of electors by the deadline?", "what happens if a state fails to approve a slate of electors before the day the electoral vote happens?" or even "what happens if a state hasn't supplied the electoral votes by the day they are supposed to be in the hands of Congress?" I doubt you would have liked SCOTUS' answers to any of those questions either, because they probably wouldn't have involved Florida's electoral votes counting at all, and probably would have led to the House voting whether it would be Bush, Gore, or whoever Barbara Lett-Simmons (faithless elector for DC, who abstained in protest of DC not having Congressional representation, but might not have in this scenario) might have voted for in this scenario as no candidate would have hit the minimum number of electoral votes if Florida had no slate of electors by the required date (12/12) and federal election deadlines are enforceable at all.
Ralph Nader took enough votes from Gore to bring the election to a narrow enough race that the court could steal it.
If he'd dropped out near the end, when it was clear he wasn't going to get the 5 percent he needed, he still refused to put his support behind Gore, selling the lie that both parties are essentially the same.
you have no idea what would have happened. the electoral college could have put Michael Moore in the presidency. you're guessing and basing your theory on a counterfactual.
"ooOOoo, considering possibilities is scary!"
what are you quoting?
I'm paraphrasing you
that's a strawman.
Why would we have to take a note from republicans?
Bernie's been making that same point for decades...
Because they completely overhauled their party and transformed it from the inside. No way in hell Trump ever could have gotten elected as a third party candidate. But now he owns the entire party.
Just because they are evil morons doesn't mean we can't appreciate he there magnitude of the transformation.
Then vote for one? We do have more than democrat and republican. They're usually not much better. Ain't no difference between 2 piles of shit or 5. It's all shit. Nobody who wants these jobs is ever fit enough that they should have them.
Really disturbing how nowhere in this post about 63% potential third party voters is anyone advocating for voting third party.
Vote literally any other party than Dem or Republican. I'm voting green for Dr. Cornel West and I'm proud to support him.
Edit: Dr. West is running independent now and I'll likey vote for him unless the greens nominate someone better.
Because in our current system, it is literally a wasted vote. There is a reason Russia promotes the green party - it is because it splits the Democrat vote, making it more likely for a Republican to win.
That doesn't mean the 3rd party people are bad, or the cause isn't just. I actually really like Dr. Cornel West as well, far more than Biden. But the realities are such that I am aware that there is 0 chance he will win, and votes for him are better spent on the lesser of the two evils.
How does voting for libertarian candidates not diminish Republican votes? Everyone says Green Party is responsible for a milquetoast candidate with low approval ratings losing an election based on popular vote.
I don't see Republicans or Democrats blaming Libertarians for when they lose, even though they are the biggest third party, registered in all 50 states, and had more votes in general than other third party candidates since Ross Perot.
And libertarians get actual money from companies who support them, like republicans. Green party doesn't. I've seen more ads for them and "vote Jo Jo" than Green party support, and yet somehow the smallest party is to blame.
This is the logic they always try to avoid talking about. The libertarian party got triple the amount of votes as the greens in 2016 pulling more Dem voters than the greens yet liberals try to blame the greens for Hillary Clinton's loss.
This is what happens when you watch CNN uncritically. They do not split the Dem vote, as green voters would never vote Dem.
It is funny that the Dems are the pro war party now though.
I am a person who would vote green, but instead vote dem
(To clarify, I would vote for whoever happens to be the most progressive candidate. Party doesn't really matter).
Then you're not a green voter though