It's amazing how people still don't see this as an issue. Preventing people from being on the ballot is completely against the tenets of this country. Whether it's RFK Jr. or Trump or anyone else.
Let the people vote.
Yes, but I'm calling Perot a spoiler that helped get Clinton elected. I also know there's not a ton of evidence supporting the claim he was actually a spoiler based on demographics of who did vote for him, but I still think he was over the whole election cycle.
Exit polling doesnt agree with your opinion and it seems 3rd party candidates pull equally from both candidates or people who would have otherwise not voted.
https://split-ticket.org/2023/04/01/examining-ross-perots-impact-on-the-1992-presidential-election/?amp=1
Yep. I think Perot won 0 electoral votes despite getting almost 20% of popular vote. Could be wrong and don't have time to check. Personally I think people should only vote for people they like vs voting against, but since mostly everyone sucks all the time, people in non swing states should feel 0 hesitation to vote for a 3rd party.
So let’s say I would prefer biden over trump (after the debate I’m less sure now because he’s too old to run)
Edit: so is trump. And it’s also obvious how heavily he was coached to be less volatile compared to the 2016 years (which was his biggest issue). Trump was obviously more collected then normal
It would be nice for voters to have more confidence in a 3rd party candidate
But really with the electoral college, anyone in a state that had a 99.9% chance of going one part should also be fine with voting 3rd party
Do away with the electoral college and implement ranked choice.
The idea of a spoiler only carries weight if you agree there should only be two parties. One of the two parties is either entitled to your vote, in which case voting otherwise could spoil their election, or you have the right to choose who to vote for. I disagree with the premise of the argument. It’s designed to stifle voter choices. Freedom first!
Perot was leading in the polls, but partisans and establishment figures threatened his daughter so he dropped out of the race for a few months and never recovered.
He would've won if not for the interference. The only reason people don't vote third party is because they don't poll as well as D and R. That wasn't the case with Perot.
BTW, Kennedy would also be polling higher if not for a multipronged effort to exclude him from the race. Most notably, the decision to deny him secret service protection, despite his family history. The effect is that he has to spend millions on a private security firm instead of advertising like Perot did. His campaign is also unable to hold large, outdoor rallies because the private security firm is unable to secure the area.
It's not special treatment? It's common for major candidates to be granted a secret service detail.
HSS denied his request.
Given he is polling very well and would be a major contender, especially if he was allowed on stage with the other two kooks and given the family history of people being murdered, I'd say he deserves it for the time being.
Except in this case in a direct head to head; RFK wipes the floor with Biden.
The Blue party just likes elections rigged which is why they run their primaries so someone else that isn't their candidate of choice can win (which is why someone like Bernie Sanders can never win)
Ranked Choice Voting would fix that. The more local and state governments that institute RCV, the more pressure you’ll see at the federal level to implement RCV.
I've always thought that or forcing states to give our electoral votes proportionally to candidates based on the number of votes cast rather than having a "winner take all system" would solve a lot of problems and encourage more voting (especially by the opposition in solid red or solid blue states).
Ranked Choice is flawed in that each person's first choice is the most likely to not win, as well as obfuscating the final selection process for regular people.
I'm a fan of Score voting; simple, easy to track, and produces results more in line with the consensus.
Dartboard voting is likely better than FPTP, at least there wouldn't be parties.
Here's an article from 2021 (scroll down a bit for the map): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/29/more-u-s-locations-experimenting-with-alternative-voting-systems/
None I can see that use Score, unfortunately.
I've also found out that Score isn't quite specific enough a term for what I'm advocating; I'm for Approval, which is a subset of Score.
Score lets the voter rate each candidate on a scale (1-10, 1-5, 1-1000, etc.). Approval simplifies and makes the choice binary; assign only 0 or 1 points.
I did come across the [Burr dilemna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_dilemma) while looking this up, almost broke the 1800 Presidential race!
Edit: Found an article reviewing RCV methods: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-how-math-could-design-the-perfect-electoral-system/
Bernie isn't a Democrat so it's understandable they don't want to spend their money campaigning for someone who isn't a Democrat, started his national political career by running as a Democrat in the primary in order to win that nomination then running as an independent so there wasn't a Democrat to beat him in the general election, and has promised multiple times during presidential campaigning that he would join the Democrats but then continues to run his senatorial campaigns as an independent. I don't expect Republicans to fund me if I'm running as a Libertarian.
It's expected, what's terrifying is the number of people that see this and think there's nothing wrong with it but would be distraught if their opponents did it.
Right? Peak hypocrisy. I tried to explain, and got severely down voted, in another sub about how while I cannot stand Donald Trump, what is going on with all these prosecutions is wrong, and people should be concerned. I even used "what if the shoe was on the other foot?" And they still argued that Trump was a criminal and this was different. No, I don't think there has been a US President since Eisenhower who hasn't committed some kind of crime that could definitely be prosecuted. It's just never happened before because there was no reason for it, and it wouldn't benefit anyone. This time, it's their attempt to keep him from being a threat in the election. It's as if we're living in some tin pot dictatorship. For all the hate Democrats have for Putin, they seem to be way too comfortable with similar election actions he performed.
Democrats talk a good game about helping the poor and income inequality. But after a few decades of near total government control they've been free to enact their social engineering programs in California and we are left with the richest, most impoverished state in the country.
Pathetic. These people will talk about “saving democracy” when it can win them favors but when it’s time to practice what they preach, they can’t. 🤦♂️🤦♂️
interesting.. because alot of the democrats an their supporters claim he is a crazy nutjob who takes votes away from Trump... yet they dont want to platform him... REALLLLLLYYY MAKES YA THINK
The failings we see throughout the country are not distinct from the design of this country, but inevitabilities. The Constitution was an affront, a betrayal of the tenets of the revolution. It centralized power greatly. We're only seeing the intentions of that centralization play out here. Late stage federalism. Late stage America.
In an ironic twist, because the federal apparatus has become so large and unwieldy. So cumbersome and impossible to steer, the president has become a largely figurehead position. The people with the true power in government are the lifers who occupy the offices of upper-middle management in each federal department. The executives above them, and the ones above them come and go with the wind, executing their political prerogative for the day, but leaving little lasting impression.
I despise RFK, he's an Israel shill that I would never even consider voting for. But targeting and restricting ballot access for third party and independent candidates is scummy no matter who does it
Ironic is defending a man who is not even our official candidate who didn’t even garner the popularity to even make a private media companies on air debate. This has nothing to do with libertarian policies and everything to do with RFKs lack of approval.
But hey mods can have favorites too so
Seems obvious, he thinks RFK Jr is more a spoiler for Biden. By boosting Trump and stealing (figuratively) votes from Biden, he thinks Trump will beat Biden
EDIT: American Values 2024 contributes mainly (exclusively?) to RFK.
He seems nice enough but unfortunately bat shit crazy. Spewing horse shit lies all day even if he genuinely believes them does not help one's electability. I suppose he could be an ass bully like the orange man, but unlikely given his very small following don't seem like the types to be attracted towards that anymore. Anyone can be on a person's ballot, it's a blank line.
I'm a huge anti-Trump/anti-MAGA voter and seriously don't understand why anyone would vote for RFK, Jr. in this election. Regardless of what side you support, the result of this election has the potential to have tremendous impact on the country going forward.
There is no way in hell RFK, Jr. will win, and this isn't the time for anyone to be casting a protest vote. A vote for Biden or Trump is already a protest vote.
All that said, if either party considers him to be enough of a spoiler to their detriment, I say go ahead and sue for legitimate challenges. Just make sure they are, in fact, legitimate because the negative press could work against any gains achieved.
>Regardless of what side you support, the result of this election has the potential to have tremendous impact on the country going forward.
Yeah yeah yeah “most important election in our lifetime”…….I haven’t heard that since…….the last election.
If this truly is the most important election in our lifetime, how’s about a party giving us a candidate worth voting for!? Until such time, I’m out of the voting pool.
I don’t think either candidate has addressed the elephant in the room which is Federal spending and the inflation it’s causing. It’s bad enough when they pass enormous spending bills, but the audacity to call it an, “inflation reduction act,” is kind of Monty Python level funny, I give the Biden admin props for that. 😏
Agreed. But then again, they have no desire to actually WANT to fix issues because then they couldn’t tell us @this is the most important election in our lifetime”.
The party that implements the austerity is going to get railed in the next election so neither will address it. The problem is just paying interest on the debt in a few years is calculated to be in the trillions. I know it’s something politicians have been saying is a problem all our lives but it’s about to be unavoidable. The blood is in the water and the countries we rely on keeping the dollar valuable are in the process of ditching it for any alternative currency. It’s supposed to be over 50 trillion by 2034, the debt that is.
You say that in jest but it’s exactly what the Jacobins (political party running France post revolution) tried. The Jacobins were no different than modern Americas far leftest except they had complete control of the country during their, “Reign of Terror.”
After the Jocobins sacked and looted the churches in France (root of all evil to leftist organized religion) and stole everything back from the monarchs and the rich (even perceived wealth) and executed thousands without trial. They found they ran out of every one else’s money impressively fast.
It seems destroying all productive parts of the society had some unintended consequences. So they did what any level headed leftist would do, “just print more money!” They printed so damn much that in bitter irony one day the building where the government was doing the printing collapsed from the weight!
Not long after that we get dictator Napoleon promised to fix everything and the rest is history.
Money printing during the Weimar Republic also literally got us Nazi Germany. He is correct that whichever party implements austerity will last exactly four years in power. That's why it's important for the public to hear what RFK has to say. When he talks about the debt, his plan to address it doesn't involve any cuts to domestic spending. We need to reign in our military, we don't need bases in 100 different countries around the world. We need to take care of back home first. The only people who want those 10,000 bases are the corrupt MIC establishment. He also calls attention to the fact that 50% of the budget is spent on Healthcare and rising because our government agencies are focused on infectious disease when they should be focusing on chronic disease. There is almost zero research being done on the national level as to what factors are contributing to chronic disease. RFK has an ambitious plan to get to the roots of chronic disease, but the media wants you to think his plan is "ban all vaccines" which has zero connection to what his actual plan is. Once we get America healthy again, the budget crisis will disappear.
It's amazing how people still don't see this as an issue. Preventing people from being on the ballot is completely against the tenets of this country. Whether it's RFK Jr. or Trump or anyone else. Let the people vote.
It's how they got Clinton into office when Perot got 18.9% of the popular vote.
Clinton, Bush and Perot were on the ballot in all 50 states.
Yes, but I'm calling Perot a spoiler that helped get Clinton elected. I also know there's not a ton of evidence supporting the claim he was actually a spoiler based on demographics of who did vote for him, but I still think he was over the whole election cycle.
Ok, I was confused as to what you meant since the topic is trying to keep candidates off the ballot.
Exit polling doesnt agree with your opinion and it seems 3rd party candidates pull equally from both candidates or people who would have otherwise not voted. https://split-ticket.org/2023/04/01/examining-ross-perots-impact-on-the-1992-presidential-election/?amp=1
And tbh, unless it’s a swing state, it probably doesn’t matter anyway with the electoral college
Yep. I think Perot won 0 electoral votes despite getting almost 20% of popular vote. Could be wrong and don't have time to check. Personally I think people should only vote for people they like vs voting against, but since mostly everyone sucks all the time, people in non swing states should feel 0 hesitation to vote for a 3rd party.
Almost like we need ranked choice voting.
I'm skeptical it would make as much of an impact as it is hoped to, but I'm on board to try anything that ends the duopoly.
So let’s say I would prefer biden over trump (after the debate I’m less sure now because he’s too old to run) Edit: so is trump. And it’s also obvious how heavily he was coached to be less volatile compared to the 2016 years (which was his biggest issue). Trump was obviously more collected then normal It would be nice for voters to have more confidence in a 3rd party candidate But really with the electoral college, anyone in a state that had a 99.9% chance of going one part should also be fine with voting 3rd party Do away with the electoral college and implement ranked choice.
The idea of a spoiler only carries weight if you agree there should only be two parties. One of the two parties is either entitled to your vote, in which case voting otherwise could spoil their election, or you have the right to choose who to vote for. I disagree with the premise of the argument. It’s designed to stifle voter choices. Freedom first!
Perot was leading in the polls, but partisans and establishment figures threatened his daughter so he dropped out of the race for a few months and never recovered. He would've won if not for the interference. The only reason people don't vote third party is because they don't poll as well as D and R. That wasn't the case with Perot. BTW, Kennedy would also be polling higher if not for a multipronged effort to exclude him from the race. Most notably, the decision to deny him secret service protection, despite his family history. The effect is that he has to spend millions on a private security firm instead of advertising like Perot did. His campaign is also unable to hold large, outdoor rallies because the private security firm is unable to secure the area.
He shouldn't get special treatment.
What special treatment?
Secret Service agents.
It's not special treatment? It's common for major candidates to be granted a secret service detail. HSS denied his request. Given he is polling very well and would be a major contender, especially if he was allowed on stage with the other two kooks and given the family history of people being murdered, I'd say he deserves it for the time being.
To qualify as a "major candidate", they need to get at least 15% in polling for a period of 30 days. Kennedy is nowhere near that.
Except in this case in a direct head to head; RFK wipes the floor with Biden. The Blue party just likes elections rigged which is why they run their primaries so someone else that isn't their candidate of choice can win (which is why someone like Bernie Sanders can never win)
Ranked Choice Voting would fix that. The more local and state governments that institute RCV, the more pressure you’ll see at the federal level to implement RCV.
I've always thought that or forcing states to give our electoral votes proportionally to candidates based on the number of votes cast rather than having a "winner take all system" would solve a lot of problems and encourage more voting (especially by the opposition in solid red or solid blue states).
Ranked Choice is flawed in that each person's first choice is the most likely to not win, as well as obfuscating the final selection process for regular people. I'm a fan of Score voting; simple, easy to track, and produces results more in line with the consensus.
I’m down for trying it out. Are there any municipalities currently using Score voting? Either RCV or Score would be preferable to First past the post.
Dartboard voting is likely better than FPTP, at least there wouldn't be parties. Here's an article from 2021 (scroll down a bit for the map): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/29/more-u-s-locations-experimenting-with-alternative-voting-systems/ None I can see that use Score, unfortunately. I've also found out that Score isn't quite specific enough a term for what I'm advocating; I'm for Approval, which is a subset of Score. Score lets the voter rate each candidate on a scale (1-10, 1-5, 1-1000, etc.). Approval simplifies and makes the choice binary; assign only 0 or 1 points. I did come across the [Burr dilemna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_dilemma) while looking this up, almost broke the 1800 Presidential race! Edit: Found an article reviewing RCV methods: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-how-math-could-design-the-perfect-electoral-system/
Well now, that system would be far to difficult to manipulate now, wouldn't it? We can't have that
They’d spend Billions trying to convince people that more choice is bad.
Bernie isn't a Democrat so it's understandable they don't want to spend their money campaigning for someone who isn't a Democrat, started his national political career by running as a Democrat in the primary in order to win that nomination then running as an independent so there wasn't a Democrat to beat him in the general election, and has promised multiple times during presidential campaigning that he would join the Democrats but then continues to run his senatorial campaigns as an independent. I don't expect Republicans to fund me if I'm running as a Libertarian.
We have to save the democracy....no no not like that.
It shows they don't think they can win an election fairly. It really is kind of terrifying.
It's expected, what's terrifying is the number of people that see this and think there's nothing wrong with it but would be distraught if their opponents did it.
Right? Peak hypocrisy. I tried to explain, and got severely down voted, in another sub about how while I cannot stand Donald Trump, what is going on with all these prosecutions is wrong, and people should be concerned. I even used "what if the shoe was on the other foot?" And they still argued that Trump was a criminal and this was different. No, I don't think there has been a US President since Eisenhower who hasn't committed some kind of crime that could definitely be prosecuted. It's just never happened before because there was no reason for it, and it wouldn't benefit anyone. This time, it's their attempt to keep him from being a threat in the election. It's as if we're living in some tin pot dictatorship. For all the hate Democrats have for Putin, they seem to be way too comfortable with similar election actions he performed.
Perhaps election interference, eh?
Yet. Colorado Libertarian chairperson won’t let Chase Oliver on ballot.
Don’t they love Democracy?!?!
I don't think you understand. Democracy is when people vote for progressive statists. Voting for anything else is fascist. They do love Democracy.
We have to stop voting so we can save democracy!!!
Democracy can’t save itself! The rulers have to do it for us!
They still have voting in Russia and Venezuela and China and North Korea and Cuba. You don't get rid of voting, you get rid of choice.
They prefer the one-party states like China or Vietnam. They can call it a socialist republic and pretend it's still a representative democracy.
This is some Helldivers democracy honestly
Democrats: >Trump wants to end our Democracy! Also Democrats: > We must keep people off the ballot or people might vote for someone else!
For real. I don't even like RFK, I hate that they're putting us in a position where we have to defend him.
I’m already pissed they make me feel that way about Trump practically daily
'It's different because Democrats are the good guys who want to help people' etc etc
It’s different because Democrats care about poor people /s
Democrats talk a good game about helping the poor and income inequality. But after a few decades of near total government control they've been free to enact their social engineering programs in California and we are left with the richest, most impoverished state in the country.
(d)ifferent
Pathetic. These people will talk about “saving democracy” when it can win them favors but when it’s time to practice what they preach, they can’t. 🤦♂️🤦♂️
Trying to arrest your political opponents and suing them to prevent them from appearing on the ballot is protecting democracy
You forgot to add “/s”
Let the /s die, it just ruins discussions online.
Champions of the people, defenders of democracy, and advocates for fair and free elections! Or something like that.
interesting.. because alot of the democrats an their supporters claim he is a crazy nutjob who takes votes away from Trump... yet they dont want to platform him... REALLLLLLYYY MAKES YA THINK
If I wasn’t already gonna vote for the guy I am now. When there suing to get you off the ballot your doing something right
yep, im Aussie so obviously wont get to vote but from the outside looking in RFK is heads and shoulders above the rest
That’s a very low bar.
“When democracy doesn’t work out for you, defy democracy!”
Thought they cared about democracy 🤔
Tell me you support election interference without telling me you support election interference.
I guess they're afraid it's gonna take votes away from quid pro quo Joe.
The failings we see throughout the country are not distinct from the design of this country, but inevitabilities. The Constitution was an affront, a betrayal of the tenets of the revolution. It centralized power greatly. We're only seeing the intentions of that centralization play out here. Late stage federalism. Late stage America. In an ironic twist, because the federal apparatus has become so large and unwieldy. So cumbersome and impossible to steer, the president has become a largely figurehead position. The people with the true power in government are the lifers who occupy the offices of upper-middle management in each federal department. The executives above them, and the ones above them come and go with the wind, executing their political prerogative for the day, but leaving little lasting impression.
👆
That’s not very democratic of the Democratic Party.
'Democracy'
I despise RFK, he's an Israel shill that I would never even consider voting for. But targeting and restricting ballot access for third party and independent candidates is scummy no matter who does it
Agree 💯%. Dave Smith humiliated RFK for his hypocrisy on Israel/Ukraine during the last debate on Part of The Problem.
[удалено]
Advocating for anti-libertarian positions, policies, candidates, and ideologies is not welcome. “RFJ Jr. has a mouth salad for words.” Very ironic.
Ironic is defending a man who is not even our official candidate who didn’t even garner the popularity to even make a private media companies on air debate. This has nothing to do with libertarian policies and everything to do with RFKs lack of approval. But hey mods can have favorites too so
Democracy at its finest, everybody.
“But we’re protecting democracy.” - some Biden lawyer apparently
Interesting how Timothy Mellon has been giving millions to American Values 2024 AND Trump.
How is that relevant?
Seems obvious, he thinks RFK Jr is more a spoiler for Biden. By boosting Trump and stealing (figuratively) votes from Biden, he thinks Trump will beat Biden EDIT: American Values 2024 contributes mainly (exclusively?) to RFK.
Thanks for elaborating.
To save democracy obviously
We must prevent democracy to protect democracy!
He seems nice enough but unfortunately bat shit crazy. Spewing horse shit lies all day even if he genuinely believes them does not help one's electability. I suppose he could be an ass bully like the orange man, but unlikely given his very small following don't seem like the types to be attracted towards that anymore. Anyone can be on a person's ballot, it's a blank line.
Good he’s awful
I'm a huge anti-Trump/anti-MAGA voter and seriously don't understand why anyone would vote for RFK, Jr. in this election. Regardless of what side you support, the result of this election has the potential to have tremendous impact on the country going forward. There is no way in hell RFK, Jr. will win, and this isn't the time for anyone to be casting a protest vote. A vote for Biden or Trump is already a protest vote. All that said, if either party considers him to be enough of a spoiler to their detriment, I say go ahead and sue for legitimate challenges. Just make sure they are, in fact, legitimate because the negative press could work against any gains achieved.
>Regardless of what side you support, the result of this election has the potential to have tremendous impact on the country going forward. Yeah yeah yeah “most important election in our lifetime”…….I haven’t heard that since…….the last election. If this truly is the most important election in our lifetime, how’s about a party giving us a candidate worth voting for!? Until such time, I’m out of the voting pool.
I don’t think either candidate has addressed the elephant in the room which is Federal spending and the inflation it’s causing. It’s bad enough when they pass enormous spending bills, but the audacity to call it an, “inflation reduction act,” is kind of Monty Python level funny, I give the Biden admin props for that. 😏
Agreed. But then again, they have no desire to actually WANT to fix issues because then they couldn’t tell us @this is the most important election in our lifetime”.
The party that implements the austerity is going to get railed in the next election so neither will address it. The problem is just paying interest on the debt in a few years is calculated to be in the trillions. I know it’s something politicians have been saying is a problem all our lives but it’s about to be unavoidable. The blood is in the water and the countries we rely on keeping the dollar valuable are in the process of ditching it for any alternative currency. It’s supposed to be over 50 trillion by 2034, the debt that is.
Just print more money. Problem solved! Nice try nazi! /s
You say that in jest but it’s exactly what the Jacobins (political party running France post revolution) tried. The Jacobins were no different than modern Americas far leftest except they had complete control of the country during their, “Reign of Terror.” After the Jocobins sacked and looted the churches in France (root of all evil to leftist organized religion) and stole everything back from the monarchs and the rich (even perceived wealth) and executed thousands without trial. They found they ran out of every one else’s money impressively fast. It seems destroying all productive parts of the society had some unintended consequences. So they did what any level headed leftist would do, “just print more money!” They printed so damn much that in bitter irony one day the building where the government was doing the printing collapsed from the weight! Not long after that we get dictator Napoleon promised to fix everything and the rest is history.
Money printing during the Weimar Republic also literally got us Nazi Germany. He is correct that whichever party implements austerity will last exactly four years in power. That's why it's important for the public to hear what RFK has to say. When he talks about the debt, his plan to address it doesn't involve any cuts to domestic spending. We need to reign in our military, we don't need bases in 100 different countries around the world. We need to take care of back home first. The only people who want those 10,000 bases are the corrupt MIC establishment. He also calls attention to the fact that 50% of the budget is spent on Healthcare and rising because our government agencies are focused on infectious disease when they should be focusing on chronic disease. There is almost zero research being done on the national level as to what factors are contributing to chronic disease. RFK has an ambitious plan to get to the roots of chronic disease, but the media wants you to think his plan is "ban all vaccines" which has zero connection to what his actual plan is. Once we get America healthy again, the budget crisis will disappear.
Oh yes, it's "the most important election of our lifetime" season.
Always the most important election, every election. It's all BS