cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/44904749
I heard about this in the UK elections recently, and someone recommended it to me recently for the US elections, because I said I empathize with the people who are voting against Kamala because of the genocide, despite being a Kamala supporter myself (you’ve probably seen me around arguing as such lol).
Basically, it’s a system where people in safe states, like me, agree to trade votes with someone in a swing state. So the safe state person would vote with the heart of the person in the swing state, so they can kind of vote their heart and mind at the same time.
Is this a thing we could set up? Would it be legal to make a community for that, or would it rub against laws about affecting votes or something? There was even a whole site for the UK, but not sure if it would work in the US.
Whoops might have accidentally deleted the post I was trying to crosspost instead of the duplicate post I made earlier 🤦
Basically, the idea is, if someone would want to vote for a third party because they don’t like a candidate’s pro-genocide policies or fracking or something, but they feel uncomfortable because they also live in a swing state and don’t want their least favorite candidate to win the election (probably Trump), they make an agreement with someone who lives in a safe state, who will vote for the third party that person wants instead.
Seems simple enough to set up and might assuage some people’s conscience instead of risking them voting for a third party, while still giving that party increased numbers this election. It also shows displeasure in the two party duopoly without risking the election itself for a candidate the person doesn’t want.
Would people be interested in a community or thread set up for this here on Lemmy and/or Reddit?
I’m intrigued.
I don’t quite get what the swing state voter gets out of it though - or why they’d give up their stronger voting power (see https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/19/15831640/supreme-court-gerrymandering-wisconsin for an explanation) for the lesser power of the person in the safe state.
The issue is that by voting their conscience for a third party, they might get a candidate they hate, because of the way the electoral college works every swing vote is super important, the margins can get so small. It’s risky. So they ensure the one they like least in the party duopoly doesn’t get elected, while still ensuring a third party they like can get a boost.
Or course if they really don’t care who gets elected between Trump and Kamala, then it doesn’t matter. But a lot of third party voters would still have some preference between those two, and they are aware there’s no chance their candidate is getting elected. It’s more of a protest number to use elevated numbers to show displeasure, which I feel can be done nationally and not just in individual states. Of course, the protest vote is more powerful if the closer candidate actually loses a swing state because they didn’t acquiese to the protest’s demands, but then you risk getting the other candidate you really didn’t want most, so this seems like a safer alternative/compromise.
Ah, I think get it now.
So swing state voter who really wants to vote for say Stein due to her policy on Gaza but wants Harris to win in case Stein loses, can swap with a safe state voter who’s first preference is voting for Harris.
Then the safe state voter votes Stein (perhaps as a write-in vote if Stein’s not on the ballot there), and the swing state voter votes Harris.
The safe state voter feels good because they caused one vote for Harris that Harris might not have gotten otherwise, especially in a swing state. The swing state voter feels good because they caused one vote for Stein but also didn’t risk swinging the election to the GOP by costing Harris a valuable swing state.
This is brilliant! I wish I had heard about this earlier, as I already voted, but I’d love to do something like this next time around.
Imagine, if every voter in Michigan and Wisconsin who was voting for Stein swapped with a Dem voter in California. Maybe a lot of these folks wouldn’t care between the two (GOP vs Dem) but probably there’s a significant amount here who would still rank Harris above the GOP choice. So this prevents a protest vote from helping the candidate that they’d like the least.
Right?! At last, someone gets it! Lol and you explained it even better.
Although you bring up a good point that early voting has started. Probably too late for me to start looking into something like this now 😩
Hey, it’s not too late yet. I may not be able to take part in this election anymore but if you haven’t voted yet, you still can.
I imagine that there are tons of third party voters out there, who haven’t voted early yet because they’re feeling conflicted between voting their conscience and preventing armageddon. I’m sure you’ll be able to find folks to pair up with and exchange if you go for it!