• Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Good thing I’m not a liberal, and I have hard mathmatical evidence. Here it is!

      Total voters: 1214
      52% of voters approved of the results.
      
      cocina - 626 votes - WINNER
      owen - 588 votes
      

      Total voters: 1214
      48% of voters approved of the results.
      
      owen - 585 votes - WINNER
      room - 317 votes
      cocina - 312 votes
      

      These two randomly generated elections are identical, with the exception that the second election has a newly introduced candidate, who is irrelevant.* Yet despite their irrelevance, their introduction has changed the outcome of the election. That means this is a failed electoral system, and this is what people are talking about when they talk about the spoiler effect, as per the definition:

      In social choice theory and politics, the spoiler effect refers to a situation where a large group of like-minded voters split their votes among multiple candidates, which can affect the result of an election by allowing a candidate with a smaller base of support to win with a plurality. If a major candidate is perceived to have lost an election because a more minor candidate pulled votes away from them, the minor candidate is called a spoiler candidate and the major candidate is said to have been spoiled. This phenomenon is also called vote splitting.

      * Irrelevent meaning they had no chance of winning. In the second election, the voters colored lime green and light blue would never have voted for the new purple candidate, because the lime green and blue candidates were closer. So telling those voters to “quit voting for the establishment, vote with your heart” is meaningless, because that’s already what they’re doing, they’re just voting for whoever is closest to them.

      • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        That is based on the assumption that a 3rd party voter would vote for a right wing duopoly party to begin with if there were no 3rd party options. We would likely leave that box empty and vote down ballot or simply not vote at all.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That is based on the assumption that a 3rd party voter would vote for a right wing duopoly party to begin with if there were no 3rd party options.

          Not really. It’s the subset of voters that have an effect on the votes of the doupoly candidates, and 3rd party voters who would never vote for the doupoly candidates by definition aren’t in that subset to begin with.

          Zooming out/accounting for voters abstaining doesn’t actually change anything:

          Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates"
          Total people: 1047
          11% of people supported the winner.
          
          Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER
          Sahl - 111 votes
          

          Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates"
          Total people: 1047
          10% of people supported the winner.
          
          Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER
          Kruger - 93 votes
          Maikol - 91 votes
          

          The overwhelming majority of Maikol’s votes came from voters who didn’t vote for the preexisting duopoly. However Maikol’s entrance into the race was enough to split the vote with Kruger, causing the election to be won by Sahl.

          The math is the same math, it still shows the spoiler effect.

            • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              That just kicks the can down the road instead of actually solving it. The spoiler effect is still there.

              And you should be especially motivated to remove the spoiler effect from our electoral systems, since it is in large part what is stopping your 3rd party from being successful. Everybody should be able to vote for who they most like, without having to worry about the spoiler effect.

    • aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com
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      2 months ago

      I liked Ralph Nader. I voted for him. George Bush barely won that election, and then started the “global war on terror”, instituted the PATRIOT act, etc.

      I learned.