VotePair Begins Pairing Voters

Brent Emerson writes "Today VotePair started matching up safe state Kerry supporters with swing state third party sympathizers to facilitate strategic voting. They matched 1446 such voters. Their goals are to defeat George Bush, support third parties, and start a conversation about electoral reform in the United States. Whether you agree with their politics or not, their ultimate point is clear: a few hundred votes in particular states could determine the outcome of this election."

Comments

Re:DOH! Doesn't work for me.

[nelsonal]

I'll be your vote swap (I live in a safe state for Bush, Montana) and already planned to vote Libertarian, too.

I think VotePact.com is a better alternative

[inditek]

There's something better than VotePair out there -- and it doesn't capitulate to the idea of "safe states" and it's not "vote trading.

This alternative allows those of you, from whatever side, fed up with the Republicans or the Democrats, to pick something else -- any third party or independent candidate without "stealing" (if you believe that a politician not earning your vote and your vote going somewhere else is a stolen vote) votes. It leaves the two parties proportionately the same against each other and empowers alternatives.

It's called VotePact. There's a simple site explaining it at www.VotePact.com

Basically: you find an equally fed-up person on the other side (a co-worker, friend, significant other, whatever) and you both promise -- make a pact -- not to vote for the major party you might normally vote for if their candidate didn't suck so much. Then you can both go vote for a third party or independent.

Cool - now I can "vote" as many times as I want

[clausiam]

1) Use 100 email addresses.
2) Register 100 times at VotePair.
3) Promise 100 times to vote for Nader (or other 3rd party candidate)
4) Get 100 people in swing states voting for Kerry instead of a 3rd party candidate.
5) Break promise made on VotePair and voila!

Finally I CAN make a difference. AND I don't even have to be a US citizen to do so - cool.

In fact I like the VotePair idea in terms of provoking discussion and election reform. Even being a Kerry supporter I don't like the "vote dealing" and the "exploit" mentioned above though. It's undemocratic and the goal doesn't justify the means. I just wish Sinclair Broadcasting had the same attitude.

Yeah - I know step 3 above should have been "Profit"...
/Claus

Awesome

[nharmon]

When Slashdot first started these political stories, they promised to "do [their] best to be fair with story selection."

However, when stories like this are posted I begin to wonder if they truly had any intention of being fair in the first place.

I have a better idea

[nharmon]

I am going to sign up on this site, and promise to vote for Kerry in exchange for a vote for Badnarik. But then when I get to the polls, I'm going for Badnarik anyway. I mean after all, whats better than a vote for Badnarik? Two votes for Badnarik!

Electoral System

[Bastian]

The thing I find most interesting about this project is the way it really brings to light the shortcomings of our electoral system. The current winner-take-all system, while it might serve other purposes, really helps to keep the two big parties in power and all others out of the sandbox.

Our two-party system really isn't serving the country at all. It's not that they're almost the same (argue as you will about that one), but that the turnover of even a couple of seats in the House and/or Senate can potentially have a drastic effect what policy comes out of Congress, especially with everybody voting along partisan lines as they do.

I worry that it also just generally screws up the electoral process. The two-party system has created a painfully artificial dichotomy. Anybody who doesn't strongly agree with one or the other party gets lumped into this huge group labeled, "Independent." We have people who agree with bits and pieces of each party's ideas and people who strongly disagree with both parties getting lumped into the same group because our mental framework for understanding the space of political ideas is unfit to describe reality.

So yeah, here's to vote trading, and let's hope the practise starts some conversation that ultimately renders it useless. =D

Re:Electoral System

[Keebler71]

There is no "winner-take-all" system that has anything to do with the electoral college. The electoral college as specified in the constitution is an excellent tool that preserves states rights and sovereignty. Unfortunately, most states have chosen to award their EC delegates in a winner-take-all fashion, which is their perogative. So your problem is with the state legislatures, not the EC itself.

Re:DOH! Doesn't work for me.

[MindStalker]

What if I promise to vote for Bush will someone vote for Bardnik for me! Oh I see, this option isn't available because the site doesn't really believe in helping the third parties, just helping Kerry win.

why i won't sign

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a swing state, and on election day I will vote for Ralph Nader. I am so disgusted with the lenghts the Kerry campaign has gone to to remove Nader from the ballot, as well as the continued rightward shift of the Democratic party, that I no longer want Kerry to win. By voting for Nader you can send the Democrats the message that their strategy is a losing one. By doing so in a swing state, your message will be louder.

Re:why i won't sign

[OMEGA Power]

By voting for Nader you can send the Democrats the message that their strategy is a losing one. By doing so in a swing state, your message will be louder.

Yes, however, that message will be "I want 4 more years of Bush" I voted for Nader in 2000 and I don't like Kerry very much either but the simple fact is that Kerry (bad as he is) is far, far better than Bush and while Nader would almost certinly be better than either one the there is no question that Kerry can win and Nader can't. Make no mistake! Voting for Nader is voting for Bush! Since you suppoort Nader I would assume you agree with him in most of the issues and it is easy to see that Kerry's position is far closer to Nader's than Bush's is on almost every issue. So please look at all the candidates positions and reconsider the election is clsoe enough that a few people voting for third party candidates to "send a message" could very well hand Bush a second term. Do you really want another 4 years of Bush policy on the enivronment, foreign policy, civil liberties, etc. Not to mention the fact that the next president will likely appoint 2-4 supreme court justices, do you really want John Ashcroft (a man who tried to revoke the rite of habius corpus, arrested people for using medical marijuna even through it is legal in their states, and spent over 8,000 tax payer dollars to cover up the bare breast of a bronze statue) having a say in our laws for the next 40 years or more.
Please Reconsider and Vote Kerry! America Can't Take Another Four Years of Bush

Stupid Idea

[Vile Slime]

What's,

To keep Bush supporters from pretending to be Nader supporters and then voting for Bush anyway?

It might be refered to as hacking the hacking of the system....

Approval voting

[bonniot]

The real solution would be a better election system, a good compromise being Approval Voting. Approval Voting uses the same ballot format as the current system but allows a voter to approve any number of candidates, effectively allowing a vote for or against each candidate. Approval Voting is a simple reform that gets rid of the spoiler and lesser-of-two-evils problems and would result in a level playing field for all parties and candidates.

Re:Approval voting

[the morgawr]

Approval voting is subject to voting stratagy though, in some ways more so then our current system.

I'll agree that we need a better election system; Personally I'm ultimiately in favor of the Condorcet System of voting because it's stratagy free. However, there are actually two problems with the system: The winner take all electoral system results in a couple of key areas in a few key states determining the results of the election, and the voting method we use is subject to stratagy, and pressure to support a "major" candidate.

I accept that the electoral college idea is a compromise designed to make small states and rural areas count, but we really need a constitutional amendment to require the assignment of votes on a congressional district basis. (The at-large votes could still be winner take all or divided proportionally)

Alternatively, each state could divy it's electoral votes on a proportional basis compleately. This has the advantage that it causes the electoral vote to be slightly more in line with the popular vote but there are other problems with this approach.

Re:Approval voting

[bonniot]

Approval voting is subject to voting stratagy though, in some ways more so then our current system. I'll agree that we need a better election system; Personally I'm ultimiately in favor of the Condorcet System of voting because it's strategy free.

Indeed Condorcet voting is better than Approval voting, but it is also more complex to implement. So promoting Approval voting could be the best thing to do in the long run, as advocated by the ElectionMethods.org website (which I think gives a very clear review of these issues).

Third party "sympathizers" ???

[tetranz]

Are sympathizers the same as "supporters"?

I don't recall hearing of Republican or Democratic sympathizers.

Re:DOH! Doesn't work for me.

[R2.0]

I would. I live in MD, and Bush has a snowball's chance in hell here, and I'm sympathetic to the Libertarian position.

Wait a minute, that would be selling my vote.

Damned ethics...

Voter Fraud?

[mindlar]

This scheme sounds a lot like voter fraud and is very likely to be illegal. Keep that in mind if you choose to sign up.

prisoner of the game

[Doc Ruby]

How do paired voters know they haven't been cheated by their opposite? That would create not the extra meaningful votes for one's candidate, but double the vote for their opponent. It's quite a dilemma. Gaming these rickety election systems offers substantial loss when it backfires.

Re:What happened to democracy?

[magefile]

Actually, it's not. It's a way of making our (undemocratic, Electoral-college-based) system into a more directly democratic system - and it fixes some of the errors caused by first-past-the-post (by allowing people to vote for a 3rd party in a safe state, or trading their vote with someone who will).

Silly, silly...

[ImaLamer]

Oh how I want to scream!

There are groups who have fought to get Nader on the ballot so that Bush can win (Citizens for a Sound Economy and Oregon Council being two). And there are Republican groups, under 527 status, who have petitioned states to get Nader on the ballot as well.

The "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" have also given money to Ralph Nader... because he doesn't support Kerry? No, because more liberals voting for Nader is good for Bush.

Re:Except in FL

[Daniel Dvorkin]

[shrug] I agree with you that the Electoral College needs to be done away with, but until that happens (if it ever does) vote trading seems to me like a perfectly moral way to deal with the system as it exists; definitely not cheating.

It goes deeper than that, though. Like I said, I think vote trading is a little strange -- my attitude is that my vote is one of the most precious things I possess, and not for sale at any price -- but ultimately your vote is your property until you decide how to use it. Would you trade your house for someone else's house in another state, sight unseen? I wouldn't, and you probably wouldn't either; but you could, and no one would claim it was immoral to do so.