leejo

Ah! Thanks for clarifying. In that situation you're certainly in play. You have the power to say no or yes. John Smith has to pay attention to you.

ScratchMonkey

Excellent point. I do that all the time. I vote for the things I have an opinion about or for those candidates I can support, and leave the other races blank. When the numbers are tallied up, I'm counted as someone who cared enough to show up, but in some races none of the choices were acceptable to me.

It used to be in a Presidential race that the central media that tallied up the votes for general distribution simply threw out all 3rd party votes and treated what was left as 100%, effectively disenfranchising many voters in the eyes of their peers. Pressure from 3rd parties a few elections back started to get the counters to report those votes, so we could see that the old parties didn't have quite the mandate they thought they did. But I suspect the "none of the aboves" are still not getting counted, and we're being counted as apathetic instead of caring but dissatisfied with the slate of choices.

It should also be noted the the Presidential Debate Commission is not some neutral organization open to all comers. It's expressly operated by the two old parties and their media lackeys (who are exempt from many campaign reform laws). The national conventions of the two old parties are also heavily subsidized by federal funds. Did you know that your tax dollars paid for your enemy's convention? The system is stacked.

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Chewy

Explanation: Sitting at home and refusing to vote "because no one fits my agenda" is not going to help "change" the current system. Did you know that there were nearly 20 presidential candidates in the last election? Probably not, in since you don't vote, but I can guarentee you right now that you did nothing to study the smaller, lesser known candidates because if you did, chances are you would have found someone that had similar beliefs as you. If you don't get to know the candidates, then yes, it would be extremely hard to find someone that shared similar thinking. But sitting at home hoping the situation will remedy itself, is sad. It takes the VOTERS to change things, not people at home upset at the system. Think about that once, it might actually make sense to do some homework next time.

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ScratchMonkey

In the last California gubernatorial election there were over 100 candidates and the media characterized it as a circus because of the the wilder ones. Yet the election worked and allowed a lot more inclusion of competing viewpoints than the usual 2-party circus, which rarely offers a real choice. I think future Presidential elections ought to operate this way. Let's get rid of primaries altogether and just let anyone play.

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CingularDuality

That would depend entirely on what state you're in...

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SmokingTarpan

Heh, I think nothing short of a revolutionary war is going to change the system as far as I'd like to see it change. Governments generally don't like to up and change the entire system from top to bottom.

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[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

Chewy

Yes, but my point was that there aren't just 3 or 4.... there are many choices.

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ScratchMonkey

And in many states the old parties do their best to hide those choices from you. IIRC, Illinois is one of the harsher ones for ballot access.

http://www.ballot-access.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_access

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Chewy

lol... the internet gives you plenty of freedom to find out about candidates!

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