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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

> The Platform page lists a selection of positions that I think would not be very controversial.

The positions may not be, but voting for anything but R or D is very controversial, because by voting third party in the US, you are helping the choice you like least win.

There is exactly zero chance that a third party will gain any meaningful amount of power, so all you are doing is throwing your vote away.

Maybe you're one of the five people in the country who don't actually care which of those two will win, but for some crazy reason still go to the polls - but if you're not one of those five, the best you can hope out of a third party is to produce better candidates in your preferred party's primary races.

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> There is exactly zero chance that a third party will gain any meaningful amount of power

The US has had a two party system since about its second election under the Constitution, but only one of the current parties has a direct lineage to the original two. The second party of the two-party system has been replaced twice. It could happen again.

OTOH, it won't happen with a platform that isn't very controversial (that's two easy for one or the other major party to coopt—or both in pieces); it would only happen with a platform with a strong position on a controversial issue where a sizable fraction of the population has views more strongly opposed to one major parties position than the other existing major party is willing to take.

This is a little self-defeating, even for our current political systems.

Recently, there was a Canadian election. While we use FPTP here, many chose to vote NDP. They are effectively a third party, and were unlikely to hold even a minority government.

But neither incumbent party put forward anything, or anyone, more compelling. So those voting NDP were given two choices: they could vote for something barely better than the other guy, or they could treat their ballot as a mixture of optimism and a spoiled ballot, to voice their disappointment at the current state of affairs in the hope it might lead to something better, someday.

Canada has a different political culture, and changing that is even harder than changing a political system. The only reason the Liberals and the NDP continue to exist as separate organizations[1] is because the Tories can't get more than a third of the vote in any particular riding, so the Lib/NDP leadership can continue to be big fish in their own ponds. If the CPC enjoyed the voter turnout that either of the major US parties enjoyed, Canada would either be a two-party system (as the Libs and NDP would merge, if they ever wanted to win a single seat ever again) with a regional spoiler (BQ) that ensured minority governments, or would be permanently ruled by the Tories.

[1] Their politics couldn't be more similar. Look at how provincial NDP parties govern, and tell me how it differs from the Federal Liberals. (It doesn't.)

NYC mayoral elections are ranked-choice

And it didn't get rid of the spoiler effect exactly. Every system has tradeoffs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/27/new-yorke...

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