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Comment by GarrisonPrime | Hacker News Reader

Friendly reminder: Not voting can be a vote in and of itself. A vote of "no confidence".

True, voting for an alternative candidate will take a percentage of the votes away from Clinton or Trump, and having them win by a lower percentage would be a satisfying way to sock it to the system and send a message. (Although, knowing the media, if the stats started to look bad they would probably start reporting Clinton and Trump vote percentages only as percentages of the Clinton+Trump votes, rather than as percentages of all votes...)

But wouldn't it be wonderful if one of them "wins" the job by receiving support from only a small fraction of eligible voters? I think having a President elected by only 15-17% of eligible voters would send a pretty good message.

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> Friendly reminder: Not voting can be a vote in and of itself. A vote of "no confidence".

No, it can be a form of non-voting protest, which is very different from a vote, including a vote of no confidence where such is an actual, meaningful thing.

And its a fairly weak form of protest, given that its protesting by doing exactly what lots of political actors expend considerable effort to get people that disagree with them to do (if you can't be convinced to vote the way they want, not voting or voting for an irrelevant option is exactly what political campaigns try to get you to do.)

> But wouldn't it be wonderful if one of them "wins" the job by receiving support from only a small fraction of eligible voters?

It likely would be almost completely unnoticed.

> I think having a President elected by only 15-17% of eligible voters would send a pretty good message.

Sure, it would be a few percent less than Clinton in 1992 (23%) or Bush in 2000 (24%). So what? Why do you expect that there is a magic threshold where suddenly it would be a "strong message" somewhere below the sub-25% of those elections and 15-17%?

Even if the President was elected by only 15-17% of eligible voters, they would still wield 100% of the power of the presidency.

Send a message to who? The newly elected President from the 15% win? Some message. Get out and look for a candidate you believe in and spread the word.

>True, voting for an alternative candidate will take a percentage of the votes away from Clinton or Trump

No it won't. The only wasted vote is voting for someone you don't believe in. Google Gary Johnson.

> President elected by only 15-17% of eligible voters would send a pretty good message

This would be largely ignored and not covered my mainstream media. It would go completely un-noticed by the vast majority.

The politicians don't care. Vote third party and get someone in there who will actually enact change.

I'd argue that deliberately spoiling your ballot sends a more powerful message.

Not voting cannot be distinguished between abstinence on principle versus apathy. However making the effort to go to vote and then making a protest is much clearer.

Agreed. Right now my vote is for a specific major party candidate as possibly the least terrible that could win vs. an empty ballot in the presidential race.

Many will say vote for a third party; but because that vote will be purely symbolic, any third party candidate that I might vote for has a higher bar to reach than a major party candidate: the party and candidate stand to gain more from a decent showing than any abstract message of protest disconnected from the party/candidate. So, a third party candidate is not a sensible default when the major party choices suck... not voting is the sensible default in that case.

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