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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 10:17 am 
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I remember being so excited and angry about the presidential election back in 2004 and 2008. This time around I just feel cynicism and apathy. I don't want to watch the debates, don't want to read election news, don't want to really discuss it. I may not even bother to mail in my ballot next month, since my last place of residence in the US was Massachusetts, and Obama couldn't lose that state unless he were videoed butchering puppies. Am I just getting old, or are you guys feeling the same way?

I didn't bother voting in the recent Hong Kong legislative council elections either. Normally I'd support the pro-democracy parties, but they've just become even more idiotic of late. They've outright splintered between the moderates who think they should compromise with Beijing, and the radicals who jump up and down and call them sell-outs. All they do now is bicker for the sake of bickering. The government used to tar them as unreasonable grandstanding obstructionists, and now they actually are. Ugh. Elections. I'm sick of them.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 11:23 am 
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I'm tired of it. Both sides are just getting worse. I can't support either of the candidates. I don't want to watch or read anything about it, but it covers my Facebook every day. I don't care anymore unless they can get someone with a middle ground on the final ballot (unlikely) and I don't like having it shoved in my face every day.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 11:48 am 
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I'm putting my efforts this cycle into promoting third party candidates -- primarily Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, but really any non-Red-or-Blue candidates. There are a lot of systemic problems with US elections, but the most fundamental reason we're stuck with a binary non-choice every election is the poisonous idea that if you don't vote for one of the two main candidates, your vote is wasted. No, if you vote for a candidate you don't actually want in office, your vote is wasted. If you vote for one candidate you don't actually like just to keep the other out of office, you deserve what you get.

Especially if you're voting in a state with a pre-determined electoral outcome (like MA, Kea, or my own wonderful IL) -- if you don't need to worry about your vote staving off the Red or Blue apocalypse sure to follow the election of the wrong color, find a candidate you actually believe in and support the hell out of their campaign! No, they won't win. But it needs to happen anyway.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 12:22 pm 
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Kea, you should vote this year because your Senate race is super important.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 1:27 pm 
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I'm with QC42 on this. I have been promoting third party candidates, but getting the same backlash.

One of the main problems is that the media, (or at least 95% of it) does not shed light any any of the third party candidates so the majority of the populace think they are non players, which in turn, has the effect of making them non players. Perhaps if Gary Johnson, Virgil Goode, Jill Stein, and Ross Anderson were all on the stage at the debate people would realize that there may be a candidate that more closely represents their views other than Mirrack Rombama.

Another problem is the difficulty in getting ballot access. Laws have been instituted that benefit the Rs and Ds but shut the other parties right out, especially new parties.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 3:12 pm 
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giggles wrote:
I don't want to watch or read anything about it, but it covers my Facebook every day.

You're welcome.

I know it would run into all sorts of First Amendment issues, but I'd love for there to be a law banning all political ads until one month before the election. We're only just now at that range and each ad I see has me on the verge of screaming, regardless of who it's for.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 3:48 pm 
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I think this is a simple case of overexposure. We've been in election mode in the news practically since 2008 -- the 2010 congressional elections were wall to wall coverage, and the presidential elections have been covered since those elections ended. I'm not surprised if there's a general sense of exhaustion.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 4:57 pm 
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Voting for third parties is a complete waste, for two reasons: one, plurality, not majority, wins. Two, the two major parties are the ones in charge of the elections. Ross Perot ruined it all for you guys. The parties learned from his candidacy to make such could never happen again. Third parties have no hope whatsoever.

What you have to do is infiltrate an existing major party and fracture it into camps from the inside. There used to be camps in the Republican party, but they have recently "purified" themselves into a far less fractious (and far more radical) party. The Democrats still have several camps, and if non-insane Conservatives would stop voting for Republicans because they're Republicans, the Blue Dogs would still be around and the Democratic party could represent everyone.

After you get enough camps in the major parties, then you can look at reforming the way elections are run and then you may possibly get some third party strength back.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 5:18 pm 
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The republicans have also made it harder to join and correct with the new rules that were teleprompted into being during the convention.

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 Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 10:06 pm 
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I don't like any of the third parties either. I'm not ideological like the Greens or the Libertarians. I have fairly standard center-left moderate views. I'm not sick of the Democratic Party (which isn't to say I like everything about them). I'm sick of elections. The coverage, the primaries, the conventions, the debates, the endless stream of gaffe-wars and offence-trolling. It's all bullhockey. Possibly enough to put me off voting. I'm also sick of the US political system, which is completely dysfunctional. My anger at various issues has given way to resignation, and I have quite a strong urge to retreat into a bubble and read fluffy articles and knit.

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 Post Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 1:05 pm 
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FB, how is voting for candidates who don't represent you not a waste? If one of the Big Two actually represents your beliefs, lucky you! Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats represent me, so I'm supporting candidates who do and encouraging others to do the same.

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 Post Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 4:02 pm 
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quantumcat42 wrote:
FB, how is voting for candidates who don't represent you not a waste? If one of the Big Two actually represents your beliefs, lucky you! Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats represent me, so I'm supporting candidates who do and encouraging others to do the same.

Because you're just going to ensure that one of the Big Two wins the race, and possibly it'll be the one that less represents you. No one is represented 100%. Everyone has to compromise. But if you are actually a supporter of a party, you have far more sway over that party than if you are not.

Voting Green isn't going to make the Democrats more like the Greens, just as voting Libertarian doesn't make the Republicans more Libertarian. You get ignored, instead of catered to. Unless you can actually manage to win a plurality and get an actual position, your vote is completely wasted. It changes nothing. The Big Two don't try to pick up third party votes, they just rig the system to make third parties irrelevant (at best; at worst, the dominant side rigs it so the third party helps them by draining the other guys.)

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 Post Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 4:38 pm 
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The problem is that we have an electoral system that forces the voters to be the ones who compromise, rather than having a system that lets voters vote their conscience and forcing legislators to compromise.

But that's not something that can be fixed easily within the current framework.

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 Post Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 9:32 pm 
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Kea wrote:
I remember being so excited and angry about the presidential election back in 2004 and 2008. This time around I just feel cynicism and apathy. I don't want to watch the debates, don't want to read election news, don't want to really discuss it. I may not even bother to mail in my ballot next month, since my last place of residence in the US was Massachusetts, and Obama couldn't lose that state unless he were videoed butchering puppies. Am I just getting old, or are you guys feeling the same way?

I didn't bother voting in the recent Hong Kong legislative council elections either. Normally I'd support the pro-democracy parties, but they've just become even more idiotic of late. They've outright splintered between the moderates who think they should compromise with Beijing, and the radicals who jump up and down and call them sell-outs. All they do now is bicker for the sake of bickering. The government used to tar them as unreasonable grandstanding obstructionists, and now they actually are. Ugh. Elections. I'm sick of them.


You're eligible to vote in two different countries? I've always been mildly confused about both where you live and what your nationality/citizenship is --maybe you just move around a lot.

I have a lot of serious reservations about Obama. But the general insanity and regressive reactionarism of the Republican party and the disaster that was 2000-2008 has scared me away from serious consideration of doing anything other than strongly supporting his reelection --even though I've come to realize I'm actually a Green, politically speaking.

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 Post Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 10:24 pm 
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First, I'm not American and therefore I couldn't vote anyhow, but here's the thing:

The Republicans are just too far off into the ridiculous right to vote for, or to fail to vote against. Say what you want against Obama, the party behind him is far, far less repulsive than the right wing machine behind Romney. I've voted Conservative here in Canada in the past couple of elections - I prefer their economic views despite their slightly repugnant social views, but the American Democrats are considerably to the right of them much less out and out socialists like the New Democrats.

Also, the first past the post method being used in the US basically leads to a choice of bad vs worse.

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