#decision 2024

[zanmor]

Using Your Vote Strategically

Your vote doesn’t matter (probably). Luckily you can make it do a bit more.

Your vote is one of a few hundred million game pieces. Knowing how best to use it requires you to understand your place on the game board. Let’s take a look at that board.

Current polling has the following ten states (yellow on the above map) as highly competitive in this year’s presidential election: Maine, New Jersey, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia. Realistically those first three have only gone to Democrats since at least 2000 so speculation is more focused on the last seven (and even New Hampshire has been solidly Democrat since it voted for Bush in 2000).

If you’re one of the roughly 37.5 million voters who lives in one of those states, congratulations! Your vote will actually help decide who wins the presidency in November. As such you should probably vote for one of the major parties. To the other 82% of the electorate, it’s time to think a little harder about how you’ll utilize your vote in the fall.

Meanwhile there are 35 states that solidly belong to one of the two parties and that ain’t changing. They’re blue and red on the map above.

These states have only given electoral votes to their respective party since at least 2000 and current polling (according to 270towin.com) shows that they will do that again this year, well beyond any margin of error in the polls. California for instance is currently polling heavily in favor of the Democratic candidate and has voted for a Democratic candidate since 2000. Obviously that’s not about to change. That’s the case with these other 34 states as well. Which means if there’s any way to “throw your vote away” then it’s by blindly tossing it in with the millions of others that will not impact the electoral college or party platforms in any way.

The states where your vote matters least are:

California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, Alaska, Missouri, Hawaii, Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Idaho, Tennessee, Utah, Arkansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, Alabama, Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, Connecticut, Vermont, Delaware, Washington DC, Rhode Island, and New Mexico.

If you live in one of these states I have no qualms about advising you to vote third party in the general election. It will not change the electoral college outcome. But it can have important benefits you wouldn’t see by simply tossing another ballot on the mountain. I’ll talk below about those benefits. First, the last part of the game board.

The following six states (green on the above map) are technically polling within the margin of error where they could potentially go either way. I personally think it’s unlikely they’ll flip but you can make your own call on that and vote accordingly. If you live in North Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, or Colorado, I think you’re likely to get more use from your vote giving it to a third party candidate based on current polling.

As I said above, I don’t expect that third party voting will impact the electoral college outside of those few truly competitive states.

So what does voting third party do?

If enough people vote third party it can do two helpful things: 1. if a party’s candidate receives over 5% of the popular vote then they can get federal matching funds in the next election, helping spread messages currently relegated to the sidelines, and 2. the major parties are more likely to take note of these votes and try to adjust their platforms to grab these voters in later elections. Voting for one of the two major parties doesn’t send any sort of message. What little utility your vote has in that regard is lost.

Voting for a candidate like Jill Stein of the Green Party can accomplish both of the above goals. Her platform is incredibly progressive. Across the board it’s a lot of things that leftists have been clamoring for. It will show establishment Democrats that there is voting support for those policies.

By supporting a third party candidate (not an independent solo candidate) we could see her get 5% of the popular vote and gain federal matching funds in 2028. It’s not about if she would be a good president or if you like her personally—she is not and never will get elected. It’s about hitting that 5% and showing the establishment that if they cater to the folks who like this platform that they can win votes.

Five percent of the 2020 election would have been just under 8 million votes. Four million Californian voters could have voted Green Party and Biden still would have won the state by over a million votes. We can definitely find 4 million votes in the other 40 states that otherwise are unlikely to impact the election. And we should.

[idkmybffjillyy]

voting against trump for the third goddamned time like:

[radiofreeallston]

#true

[thundergrace]

America's introduction to Tim Walz couldn't have gone any better. And if, in the middle of his speech, you thought, "Wow, this guy is amazing! All we need is a perfectly executed JD Vance couch joke!", this moment was for you!

There are many strategic reasons a straight middle-aged white Midwestern family man was the smart choice for VP. One of the less important ones is that he's going to be able to say things Kamala never could without criticism, and it's going to get attention from people she simply can't reach.

He's not angry, but if anyone remembers the Keegan Michael Key character of 'Luther', Obama's anger translator - He's something like that for Kamala.

[thekimspoblog]

There are few people I despise more than the "Never-Trump"-er.

You prioritized a stupid-ass religion. That's right; I said it; Christianity is stupid, and you're stupid for believing in it.

You spent years trying to strip women of their reproductive rights.

Donald Trump sicking his mob on you for being too moderate is precisely what you deserved. He is the only logical conclusion of the policies you support, and I'd honestly respect you more if you could just slap on a viking helmet with the rest of your ilk, you two-faced weasel.

And now you have the balls to get up here and whine about how your party needs to return to the center and to decency?

Every remotely reasonable policy has come from the progressive side. "Tradition" has never been the moral choice.

The Republicans have functionally been a terrorist sect for decades. Last time I checked, I wasn't supposed to negotiate with you.

You don't deserve a platform; you deserve to be kissing my shoes, begging for forgiveness that you didn't jump ship back in the 80's.

Honestly? If there's even a CHANCE of the Dems moving an inch to the right to court your vote, I'd rather you not vote at all.

You are incapable of learning from your failures, and once the orange man is gone, it's going to be right back to business as usual building your theocratic capitalistic patriarchy... just quietly and politely this time.

Go die in a ditch.

[dont-lick-my-foot]

NBC Makes its First Projections of the Night!

NBC News and The Associated Press have called Kentucky for Trump and Vermont for Harris

EC vote share totals: 8 Trump, 3 Harris

[cru5h-cascades]

This strangely gives off Splatoon idol vibes and I have no idea why (I'm talking about the background behind these two but either way I'm getting major Splatoon vibes here)

[realm-of-tas]

Learn to be mindful with your emotions, don't let ur emotions determine your decisions.

[rickmaynard]

8-9-24: Georgetown News-Graphic cartoon.

[kittentwinkles]

in light of the election:

keep going. it doesn't matter if you run, walk, crawl... You can drag yourself along the ground bleeding, bruised, sobbing and groveling in pain as long as you KEEP GOING. trump's plan for the country will be at a lot of our expenses, so as long as you keep going and stay on your feet and keep getting back up no matter how many times they try to knock you down, you've done what you need to do.

i love each and every one of you, please be safe 💙

[exyrpf]

Okay I'll admit it, I didn't actually expect to see Donald Trump pretend to deep throat a microphone three days before election day and now i wish I could erase that from my brain anyway now you all have to see it too

:)

[blemgoid]

[lonniemachin]

[thundergrace]

August 21, 2024

Texas’s highest criminal court announced on Wednesday it would again consider the case of Crystal Mason, a Texas woman who was sentenced to five years in prison for trying to cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 presidential election when she was ineligible to vote.

The announcement from the Texas court of criminal appeals is the latest step in a nearly eight-year case that has captured national attention because of the severity of Mason’s sentence. Mason, who lives in Fort Worth, attempted to vote in 2016 while on supervised release – which is like probation – for a federal tax felony. Texas, like several other US states, bars people convicted of a felony from voting until they have completed their sentence.

[...]

Sorrells has also defended the decision to appeal the case. “I want would-be illegal voters to know that we’re watching,” Sorrells said in May. “And that we’ll follow the law and we will prosecute illegal voting.”

The timing is no coincidence. This is purely voter intimidation. Once again, they're trying to make an example of this woman. It's blatant, and it's disgusting. These people are evil. And because I know some people will try it - it's not even that she was charged and convicted (even though the people monitoring her release testified that they did not tell her she couldn't vote), the controversy was in her sentencing. Five years in prison for not understanding that you can't vote even while on probation for a felony crime is ridiculous.

[dont-lick-my-foot]

[aunti-christ-ine]