The survey by the Council on American Islamic Relations finds 40% of Muslim-American voters in Michigan say they support Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
Good thing I’m not a liberal, and I have hard mathmatical evidence. Here it is!
Total voters: 1214
52% of voters approved of the results.
cocina - 626 votes - WINNER
owen - 588 votes
Total voters: 1214
48% of voters approved of the results.
owen - 585 votes - WINNER
room - 317 votes
cocina - 312 votes
These two randomly generated elections are identical, with the exception that the second election has a newly introduced candidate, who is irrelevant.* Yet despite their irrelevance, their introduction has changed the outcome of the election. That means this is a failed electoral system, and this is what people are talking about when they talk about the spoiler effect, as per the definition:
* Irrelevent meaning they had no chance of winning. In the second election, the voters colored lime green and light blue would never have voted for the new purple candidate, because the lime green and blue candidates were closer. So telling those voters to “quit voting for the establishment, vote with your heart” is meaningless, because that’s already what they’re doing, they’re just voting for whoever is closest to them.
That is based on the assumption that a 3rd party voter would vote for a right wing duopoly party to begin with if there were no 3rd party options. We would likely leave that box empty and vote down ballot or simply not vote at all.
That is based on the assumption that a 3rd party voter would vote for a right wing duopoly party to begin with if there were no 3rd party options.
Not really. It’s the subset of voters that have an effect on the votes of the doupoly candidates, and 3rd party voters who would never vote for the doupoly candidates by definition aren’t in that subset to begin with.
Zooming out/accounting for voters abstaining doesn’t actually change anything:
Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates"
Total people: 1047
11% of people supported the winner.
Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER
Sahl - 111 votes
Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates"
Total people: 1047
10% of people supported the winner.
Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER
Kruger - 93 votes
Maikol - 91 votes
The overwhelming majority of Maikol’s votes came from voters who didn’t vote for the preexisting duopoly. However Maikol’s entrance into the race was enough to split the vote with Kruger, causing the election to be won by Sahl.
The math is the same math, it still shows the spoiler effect.
That just kicks the can down the road instead of actually solving it. The spoiler effect is still there.
And you should be especially motivated to remove the spoiler effect from our electoral systems, since it is in large part what is stopping your 3rd party from being successful. Everybody should be able to vote for who they most like, without having to worry about the spoiler effect.
Good thing I’m not a liberal, and I have hard mathmatical evidence. Here it is!
These two randomly generated elections are identical, with the exception that the second election has a newly introduced candidate, who is irrelevant.* Yet despite their irrelevance, their introduction has changed the outcome of the election. That means this is a failed electoral system, and this is what people are talking about when they talk about the spoiler effect, as per the definition:
* Irrelevent meaning they had no chance of winning. In the second election, the voters colored lime green and light blue would never have voted for the new purple candidate, because the lime green and blue candidates were closer. So telling those voters to “quit voting for the establishment, vote with your heart” is meaningless, because that’s already what they’re doing, they’re just voting for whoever is closest to them.
That is based on the assumption that a 3rd party voter would vote for a right wing duopoly party to begin with if there were no 3rd party options. We would likely leave that box empty and vote down ballot or simply not vote at all.
Not really. It’s the subset of voters that have an effect on the votes of the doupoly candidates, and 3rd party voters who would never vote for the doupoly candidates by definition aren’t in that subset to begin with.
Zooming out/accounting for voters abstaining doesn’t actually change anything:
The overwhelming majority of Maikol’s votes came from voters who didn’t vote for the preexisting duopoly. However Maikol’s entrance into the race was enough to split the vote with Kruger, causing the election to be won by Sahl.
The math is the same math, it still shows the spoiler effect.
Then the best solution is create an create an environment where Democrats are the 3rd party.
That just kicks the can down the road instead of actually solving it. The spoiler effect is still there.
And you should be especially motivated to remove the spoiler effect from our electoral systems, since it is in large part what is stopping your 3rd party from being successful. Everybody should be able to vote for who they most like, without having to worry about the spoiler effect.