So yeah, I'd say if you really want to fight against something, in the first place it should be your electoral law, because that is so fucking nuts. The electoral college and winning without receiving the most votes... It's to voting what MLS is to football...

"It's the Green Party's and the people's fault they don't win stuff in America (I'm assuming?)"

No, it's not. It's Duverger's Law. A district electoral system has the result of creating a political system dominated by two large parties (and some tiny ones).
Continental Europe is fortunate enough to mostly have the PR system, that's why the Greens are a factor in European politics.

Well, yeah plurality voting sucks, but the fact that the Greens don't win any mandates is because not enough people care for the environment : D

It's because they don't get any publicity. The two-party system has, over the years, created a number of laws preventing alternatives from having the opportunity to arise. Ballot restrictions force candidates to garner a certain amount of support in pre-electoral voting that is simply not possible for third parties that are denied the same federal funding, don't receive the same amount of national attention (and can't because of similar restrictions), are given separate debates amongst each other instead of against the two main candidates, and have basically no way to do much of anything outside of local government. It is inherently fixed that way.

Also, FWIW, the Green Party in the United States is about far more than the environment. The only other Green Party I am familiar with is the German Green Party, which is largely irrelevant outside of environmental issues (simply a voting bloc), but in the United States, the Green Party has a number of other platforms. Of course, their environmental policy is still at the top of their list, as it should be.

@Bo, the Green parties have their roots in Belgium and Germany. Trust me, in their thirty five years of existence, the German Green party has developed something of a broader platform.

Also, practically every European country sports a green party these days.

Yeah, they probably have. My familiarity of German politics is noticeably outdated...

No, Thucy is delusional. Or at best, he is trying to make a point with hyperbole and failing miserably. Honestly, I think he just got burned by Russell Brand's marketing gimmick and can't own up to it.

"Those saying my decision not to vote would go unnoticed, I can equally say your vote if you cast it would go unnoticed, so that argument is null."

A vote cast is *actually* counted. If you truly believe that your votes are not counted, you are delusional.

"One man, one vote - not one dollar one vote."

We *actually* have a "One man, one vote" system, in the context of our constitutional republic. If you truly believe that dollars equal votes, you are delusional.

We *actually* have a constitutional republic. If you truly believe that we don't have a reasonable variation of democracy, you are delusional.

Sure, there are things that could be improved. Sure, there is manipulation by media and moneyed interests. That doesn't change *reality* however.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others..."
-Winston Churchill

Thucy's vote in Louisiana (like mine in either Illinois or Indiana) is useless. We don't live in swing states. I believe that 2008 was the first time since the Civil Rights Era that Indiana went Democrat, so if any time between the 1960s and 2008 (or in 2012) you voted Democrat in Indiana, your vote did *not* count, because all of the state's votes went to the Republican.

It's also well documented that personal finances play a huge role in elections and that the dollar has a ton of influence in elections. I'm not sure what "one dollar one vote" actually means, but that's a huge issue.

making your voice heard and voting are two different things

@bo:

That's ridiculous. Your vote *did* count, just now how *you* wanted it to count. Your ballot was not burned or thrown in the trash or otherwise arbitrarily discarded.

Again, you may not like the system we have and that's fine, but it is another thing entirely to whine that "My vote didn't count!"

"Your vote *did* count, just now how *you* wanted it to count."

Uhh... that basically is burning the ballot, throwing it away, or "otherwise arbitrarily" discarding it. When you vote, you expect your vote to count the way you want it to count. When it doesn't, it's a wasted vote. The Electoral College is ridiculous and throws millions of votes down the drain every four years.

You're getting into a different argument, bo. This isn't about the Electoral College at all. This is about Thucy's mad proposal to stop voting to expose "the disengaged plutocracy."

You vote. It gets counted. It counts. Why is that so hard to understand?

Anyway, the main reason this thread pisses me off so much is that it does a real disservice to any real action on electoral reform. Bring on instant runoff/ranked choice voting. Let's experiment with proportional representation.

Making specious claims about opting out of the system in order to change it isn't going to get much traction among rational people.

Let's give a shoutout to the laboratories of democracy!!

Does it count if the vote is grudgingly cast for a candidate you hate and know is lying to the people? Does it count if the candidate you vote for ignores your wishes as a voter and indeed the will of the people? Yes they "count" it, in that they add it up. But this is an irrelevant question. If I vote in a "free and fair" election about whether I like Minnie Mouse or Mickey Mouse better, my vote will be counted, but my vote does not count *for* anything

Sounds like a personal problem to me.

"Does it count if the candidate you vote for ignores your wishes as a voter and indeed the will of the people?" Then get the constituency to vote them out. If, in their term, the people do not feel rightly represented by this candidate, they have the power to do that. This isn't all that hard. Demand a new candidate. Vote in the primary.

Lmao TrPrado, thanks for the civics lesson, but I know how democracy is supposed to work. But ours doesn't work like that. I can't do what you suggest because I don't have $100 million. Wake me up when someone who *currently* makes poverty wages - less than $20k/yr - is elected to any office of importance. That would be a sign that we have our democracy. Instead we have two Royal families and some billionaires.

So Jeff, what you are suggesting is I should just do like everyone else, and read the New York Times and groom myself to where I like Hilary Clinton at last and bring myself to voting for her with enthusiasm? Give me a break. Hilary Clinton, Jeb Bush - the differences are minuscule. Neither will address poverty. Neither will address climate change. Neither will stop the unprovoked attacks on civilians that breed terrorism. Neither will bolster meaningful international law. In short, neither will do any of the things that the people of earth desperately need them to do. I'd be ashamed to vote for either.

And for the record I do care about the Electoral College. It's one more piece of a broken democracy. In 2012 I voted for president in Texas. My vote didn't count then in both the sense I am talking and it didn't even count in Jeff Kuta's sense. So I wrote in a candidate: "ABOLISH THE ELECTRL COLLG"

"but my vote does not count *for* anything"

And when exactly in democratic history did a single vote count for 'something'? And how do you prove that?

Crybaby.

"Global poverty and climate change need to be addressed immediately and are not"

"Crybaby"

That is some weak shit bro

Incumbents can't force people to let them retain power. They can try to convince their constituents to leave them in, and they succeed if they're voted back in. If the average person actually cared about those issues, if those were among the issues brought up during the campaign that people voted on, the person who is voted in would feel more compelled to address them. What America wants is not necessarily what America needs.

Yeah I notice you don't actually address any of my points, scaredy cat. Weak shit indeed.

I find the don't movement utterly abhorrent.
I agree the system is broken. The politicians are largely steaming piles of horse manure. But refusing to engage with the system, "to discourage the politicians" isn't going to accomplish anything.

If you live in an area where less that 50% of the eligible votes turn out (I do). Than an engaged voting populace could literally chose to elect anyone.

If you want to protest the jackasses in parliament you could literally get a donkey to run as an independent (okay probably not) and get all the disengaged voters to vote for it. You want to send a politicians to parliament, show them that you'd rather elect a donkey than one of their sorry asses. At least that would be more productive than refusing to engage. Politicians don't care about a blank ballot. Politicians would sit up and listen if a donkey won 30% of the votes in a riding, even if it didn't win.

Also, if you're of a more reasonable bent. Unexpected results, can happen when disenfranchised voters bother to show up. Especially in a split race. The mayor of my home city is Canada's first Muslim mayor, he also won a prize for being the world's best mayor. His initial election to the city council was a huge shock, and he won because he brought in a ton of voters who never cared enough to vote previously.

"Hilary Clinton, Jeb Bush - the differences are minuscule."

Thucy, you are delusional.

Maybe on the matters that *you* care about most you don't perceive much difference. But if you don't think there is genuine enmity, let alone core policy differences, between the Republicans and Democrats, you have gone way too far down the rabbit hole.

That matter to me???? Climate change is not a fucking special interest, get your head out of your ass. We are facing down a mass extinction and you are implying I'm being selfish. Jesus Christ

To rephrase my earlier statement: what America needs is not necessarily what America wants. I'm actually more inclined to agree with Jeff here.