Third Party Thought

January 12, 2007

While I admit to occasionally jumping on the whole “third party votes are a waste” bandwagon, I’ve given it some more thought and realized that, well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

It supports the idea that the whole point of voting is so you can be like “yay, I voted for the winner!” rather than for whom you actually want to win. Granted, most of America doesn’t know enough about the candidates to make any kind of informed decision outside of hoping they picked the right one (and to think they don’t want the voting age lowered because youth are too immature!).

And that is just it. Thing is, your one vote matters so little any way. Its importance is being one of a gigantic mass of single votes, all from people just like you thinking “will this even matter?” Thing is, not really. Votes en masse matter. Single votes, while the building blocks of mass votes, can go any which way.

But don’t get me wrong. By all means, VOTE! If nobody votes, then we as a society give the impression we don’t want the power to run our own government, which is very dangerous. Pick someone! And might as well make it worthwhile and pick someone you actually want to win, regardless of party or even likelihood of victory. Votes make their victory, you know, and you can contribute one. The only way you truly throw your vote away is by not voting at all.

Thing is, I think people view voting too similarly to, say, betting on a horse race. In a horse race, when you bet on the right horse, you win something. There’s still the “yay, I picked the right one!” feeling but you also win money. Do you win any money if you voted for the winner in an election? No. You win even less when you picked that winner over a long-shot candidate you preferred. The only advantage I could see in doing that is when the race is very close, and one of the likely candidates is someone you definitely do not want elected, just like all the folks in 2004 who voted for Kerry for no other reason than wanting Bush defeated. And a lot of good that did us.

So many races are that close, though. But even then, if you really don’t want either of them to win, don’t vote for either of them! Vote for whom you want to win, period. Nothing will change until you, and lots of other people, do. At least you doing it is a start.

5 thoughts on “Third Party Thought”

  1. Even though I’m like t3h third-party king, I only vote for third-party candidates when the election isn’t close, or if I really don’t prefer one of the major-party candidates over the other. That’s why I’m also t3h electoral reform king; I’d like a voting system that doesn’t screw up when there’s more than two candidates. 😛

  2. I didn’t want Bush or Kerry to win but there was no choice on the ballot that said “I vote agains’t Kerry” or “I vote agains’t Bush.”

  3. Yeah, there was. Nader. Badnarik. Cobb. Others. I mean, there was no way any of them would beat Bush or Kerry, but it’s still a vote against them that doesn’t involve you sacrificing your rights.

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