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Comment by Klathmon | Hacker News Reader

I don't see it that way. It's not on me that 5X% of the people who voted voted for the serial killer. That's on them. If that is who the population wants, then that is what they will get.

My vote is the voice I get in democracy. I'm not going to use it to vote in someone I don't agree with on most issues, just because the other guy is worse. Me withholding that voice (or using it to vote for someone I know won't win, but who i genuinely believe in) is the way that I can be heard. It's my way of telling future politicians that if they support X (or something close to X) that they can get a portion of those who voted for C last election.

It's my way of sending a message that the next candidate shouldn't be a serial killer AND shouldn't be involved in tax fraud. It's my call for someone who better represents me and my beliefs.

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As I said earlier, in 2000 people voted for Nader and its a pretty direct path to a trillion dollar war that cost thousands of American lives, cost hundreds of thousands of non-American lives, and led semi-directly to ISIS.

I don't blame Nader voters, because they didn't realize what could happen. Voters in 2016 have no such excuse.

Why can't we blame the democratic candidate, who was so unappealing to progressive voters that they preferred Nader? I would suggest it is the fault of that candidate (and his party) that they lost the election. No one is entitled to anyone else's votes, regardless of how bad the competition is. Voters have agency, and have no compulsion to vote for one specific candidate to avoid another evil one (that specific candidate still must earn those votes).

Yep. It's a myth that Nader lost Gore the election. In Florida, 10x as many registered Democrats voted for Bush as voted for Nader.

The main argument for voting for a guaranteed-to-lose third-party candidate is that it gives the parties a clear, quantitative signal about how many voters their base-unfriendly policies are losing them.

And also the down-ticket races, of course, though many of them are so gerrymandered here that your votes don't matter in them, either.

> Yep. It's a myth that Nader lost Gore the election. In Florida, 10x as many registered Democrats voted for Bush as voted for Nader.

This isn't a counter-argument. Yes, there are innumerable ways Gore could have gotten the handful of votes needed to push him over the top in Florida.

But it's difficult to argue that, if Nader voters voted for their second choice instead, Gore wouldn't have gotten enough votes to win. To argue otherwise is to argue that a majority of Nader voters would have picked Bush as a second pick, and that's difficult to imagine.

I don't blame Nader voters either, because they didn't cause any of that, just like how they didn't contribute to Kim Jong-un being in the position he is.

Voters in 2016 are the same. Not liking a candidate doesn't mean I should feel any obligation to vote for their "main opponent". I'm voting for who I feel represents myself and my beliefs best, and if the candidate I dislike ends up winning, that's on the ones who voted for him.

The long-term solution to this, of course, is the Alternative Vote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

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