Oh, I'd like IRV. Do bear in mind that under the original Constitution the President was the person who got the most votes in the Electoral College, while the Vice President got the second-most votes. They scrapped this after Jefferson basically undermined President John Adams, but it was there.
To come back to the arguments: 1) The point of wanting some of your preferred platform to be implemented instead of voting for your actual preferred platform is a point i addressed. It ends up with you never getting anywhere near as close to your real platform as you'd like and also leads to the main party never feeling a major need to give you more that's on your platform. You have a single vote each election for each office, and that vote either rejects or reinforces the winner's platform.
2) Voting for a third party has not made change in the long run, as yet, for multiple reasons. One is the political system which is geared toward having no more than two major parties at a time. Another is the simple truth that most people do not have the stomach for picking someone who will obviously be a losing candidate - the whole two-party zeitgeist - just to make a point. Third is the simple fact that no third party has been able to sustain double-digit polling in any state for more than a single election cycle, excepting Bernie Sanders in Vermont; but even he has not been able to mobilize and energize his party toward further major gains in Vermont or in any neighboring state.
There is simply too much pressure to keep to the two parties or the rare individual outside the two parties that can make an independent go. There is far too much pressure both in politics and in the media to keep us from seeing an effective third party, although the Tea Party possibly could have done so back in 2009 instead of dragging the GOP over to the right. If they'd done so, they may well have eaten the GOP and become the new opposition party for the Democrats - but entrenched GOP interests, both in politics and in the media, did not want it to fall out that way and did their best to stop any such movement from becoming a new party.
The more people vote for a platform, the more a politician will want to support that platform. Look at veteran GOP politicians falling over themselves to move into the Tea Party camp. Less pressure has been applied inside the Democratic Party to move it leftward than has in the GOP to move it rightward.
no subject
To come back to the arguments:
1) The point of wanting some of your preferred platform to be implemented instead of voting for your actual preferred platform is a point i addressed. It ends up with you never getting anywhere near as close to your real platform as you'd like and also leads to the main party never feeling a major need to give you more that's on your platform. You have a single vote each election for each office, and that vote either rejects or reinforces the winner's platform.
2) Voting for a third party has not made change in the long run, as yet, for multiple reasons. One is the political system which is geared toward having no more than two major parties at a time. Another is the simple truth that most people do not have the stomach for picking someone who will obviously be a losing candidate - the whole two-party zeitgeist - just to make a point. Third is the simple fact that no third party has been able to sustain double-digit polling in any state for more than a single election cycle, excepting Bernie Sanders in Vermont; but even he has not been able to mobilize and energize his party toward further major gains in Vermont or in any neighboring state.
There is simply too much pressure to keep to the two parties or the rare individual outside the two parties that can make an independent go. There is far too much pressure both in politics and in the media to keep us from seeing an effective third party, although the Tea Party possibly could have done so back in 2009 instead of dragging the GOP over to the right. If they'd done so, they may well have eaten the GOP and become the new opposition party for the Democrats - but entrenched GOP interests, both in politics and in the media, did not want it to fall out that way and did their best to stop any such movement from becoming a new party.
The more people vote for a platform, the more a politician will want to support that platform. Look at veteran GOP politicians falling over themselves to move into the Tea Party camp. Less pressure has been applied inside the Democratic Party to move it leftward than has in the GOP to move it rightward.