Friday, October 23, 2020

VotePact Gives You Leverage Over The Duopoly

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-by Sam Husseini,
Founder, Vote Pact


VotePact is a voting strategy that advocates that people vote for their actual preferences by pairing up with someone on the other side of the Democratic-Republican divide. So people can strategically vote for the candidates they most like without fear of helping those they most fear. Instead of effectively cancelling out each other-- one for Trump and one for Biden, they can both vote Libertarian or Green or whatever they want.

It is effectively DIY ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list their preferences 1-2-3. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just vetoed a RCV bill in California and Republicans in Maine are still trying to block voters from using RCV in the presidential election-- which is expected to be a historic first.

Such attempts to limit voter choice are endemic to the establishment parties. indeed, much of our political and media system is designed to keep voters in perpetual subjugation to the Democratic and Republican parties: atomized, perpetually triggered by the latest outrage of 'the other side.' This effectively makes the establishment parties less and less accountable to the public since ironically, if each of the parties becomes worse, more fear kicks in spurring desperate support for the other. This creates a vicious cycle of fear and hatred and actually strengthens the duopoly. VotePact gives a strategic path out of this -- and even modest use of it could give the voting public leverage over the duopoly candidates since their votes can no longer be taken for granted."

While many establishment Democrats complain constantly that Green Party candidate Jill Stein 'took votes away' from Hillary Clinton and handed the 2016 election to Trump, they effectively block RCV reforms which would solve the problem.

But unlike RCV and other institutional reforms, VotePact doesn't require waiting for governmental sign off that may never come. Anyone can do this right now with someone from the other side of the duopoly.

A related problem is polling. Most polls are phrased something like 'if the election were held today, which of the following would you vote for: Democrat Joe Biden, Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate.' But that just echos the voting bind and doesn't get at voter preference.

If pollsters cared to measure actual voter preferences, they would ask people to rank candidates 1-2-3, RCV style. Or they can ask: "Biden, Trump, Jorgensen and Hawkins are in a four-way tie. You are the tie-breaker, the deciding vote. Who do you vote for?' That would get at actual voter opinion.

But voter preference and control are hindered, including by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a creation of the establishment Democrats and Republicans that is sponsoring what should be called a joint televised appearance Thursday night between Trump and Biden. Third party candidates are having their own debate with the group Free and Equal on Saturday. See my letter The Huge Problem with Polls to Frank Newport of Gallup and the CPD.

Some advocate that people voting third party in safe states and 'lesser evil' in swing states, which is certainly a positive step, but it obviously restricts voter choice in 'swing states,' is likely a recipe for muffling national advocacy of third parties-- and it's not scalable. That is, a third party candidate gaining traction would likely redefine which states are safe states, though that seems unlikely this year. VoteTrumpOut lists these as swing states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, or Wisconsin.

But VotePact can work with two people in any state and it doesn't advocate for any candidate, it is simply a tool anyone can use to strategically vote for their preferred candidate with the radical act of cooperating with someone from the other side of the partisan divide. If needed, the issue of trust in this election can be overcome by people filling out mail in ballots together. A PAC backing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson rebranded VotePact as The Balanced Rebellion in 2016, got 37 million views on Facebook with an entertaining video featuring 'dead Abe Lincoln' and helped Johnson score the biggest third party success since Ross Perot. However, most third party candidates seem to have no strategy for electoral success, the Greens this year are saying they are largely out to preserve their ballot access.


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3 Comments:

At 10:01 PM, Blogger Cugel said...

This is one of those intriguing ideas in theory that will never work in practice. You could never trust a Fascist from the right-wing to do what he says. He might say he's going to vote Libertarian, but how would anybody know he's not lying and trying to strategically get an advantage for whatever Trump Part II appears next?

It's logical. If you could convince your enemy that you intended to throw away your vote on a Third Party candidate, then he votes Green or Socialist Party or whatever, . . . . and you secretly vote Trumpite Fascist Party all down the line.

Cheating is strongly encouraged! And of course, this is just the perfect strategy for "owning the Libtards!" And, no you cannot overcome the trust issue by filling in ballots together. That is never going to be practical, and in fact, there's nothing to prevent the voter from having already early voted before filling in the paper ballot. Then after you part, he contacts the voter central and say that a member of his family accidentally mailed in his paper ballot, not knowing that he had already voted in person and would you please take his mail-in ballot out of the pile and not count it because he doesn't want to be accused of trying to vote twice.

They would not count the paper ballot cause you can only vote once and they always catch things like a voter trying to vote twice. In no state can you get away with that as idiots learn from time to time whenever they try it. But, if you contact them yourself and let them know its an accident they can't do anything but take your paper ballot out and not count it. By law in every state that's what would have to happen.

 
At 11:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Voting is just a sham to pretend that there really is a Voice of the People.

Gilens and Page proved there is NOT.

 
At 7:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

just vote your conscience.

votepact is just a way to pretend to vote your conscience while not affecting the one-party outcome. Do you people totally lack skepticism?

oh. since when did a clorophyl-based organism have any skepticism. I keep forgetting.

 

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