Ted Rall for August 26, 2016

If enough people would vote for Johnson or Stein, we could overthrow the siamese twins known as the 2 party system.I’m going to waste my vote on whichever has the best chance outside the 2 party system.

If Trump wins a Nader or Perot victory, we all will lose more than our movie houses or suburbs. False equivalence.

hah! Spot on! Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil!

False equivalence indeed…In the movie ‘analogy’ there can be many winners, in an election only one (given that we all lose, no matter who wins)

In the house ‘analogy’ the false assumption that suburban or rural life is better than urban life, certainly an assumption that our younger ‘hip’ generation and Sandersites aren’t likely to endorse.

I seldom find myself at odds with Ted Rall, but today’s the day.

Third parties would have more credibility if they showed up more often than every four years! Like run for mayor, city council, dog catcher, something!

The one and ONLY thing the two parties can agree on is, there should BE NO THIRD PARTY! Elections are rigged in that sense – how primaries are run, who can get on the ballot are all controlled tightly by the two in power.

Even the idea that you are throwing your vote away on a third party is one that comes from the two in power.

you vote is never wasted

Well, this is pretty stupid. These things are not at all analogous.

Presidential Boycott: Vote for everything on the ballot except cast no vote for President.

Garry Johnson

Smaller parties, like the Greens, do run candidates in local elections.

Only one person can be President while lots of movies can be shown and people can live in lots of places so the analogy does not scan.

One way to make third party candidates more viable would be to introduce ranked voting. If people had the option of voting Green as their first choice but then having those votes applied to their second choice if no candidate reaches 50% situations like Florida in 2000 would not have occurred, while third parties would benefit from getting more than 15% and thus getting invited to debates and otherwise having an increasing effect as they become more popular.

Third party: I won’t waste my vote on a candidate that is wackier than Trump!

This is a pretty good point, but I’d like to turn it on it’s head. If we chose which movie to see like we picked presidents, we could only watch one every four years and our choices would be “Ishtar” or “Howard the Duck” We could live in the City or Suburb but you would have to decide if you wanted a house of sticks or a house of hay. The decisions we make as a people have gotten us where we are. Thank god individuals create movies for us to enjoy and we get to decide where we live and make it ours.

???????This comparison doesn’t make sense.

NeedaChuckleWhen they do win, the corporate media makes sure no one hears about it. We have had a Green mayor of Marfa (where Giant was filmed, kicked out by term limits), and came close to a majority on the Edwards Aquifer Commission (ensures quality of Austin and San Antonia water supply). When a Green filed against a flat earth State School Board incumbent, the Dallas News said, “Because no Democrat is running, that leaves only a Republican and Libertarian in the race.” When asked for a correction, they repeated the same lie verbatim.

These aren’t good analogies at all. Your vote affects the entire world, selecting a movie or a domicile do not.

It’s like saying I won’t crowd-fund a legal case that won’t be successful.

A ridiculous comparison. You need to learn some logic.

“Wow. This is so right. I am a little irked in how angry a lot of people are that they can’t come in during an election year and expect a national party to hand everything over to them.”

That’s almost exactly what happens when the new Presidential candidate controls the majority of the delegates. Until that time, the previous Prez candidate is usually in control.

If you are referring to Sanders and the Democratic Party, I believe the issue with his delegates was more the heavy handed way that Wasserman-Shultz twisted the process in favor of Clinton. After all, Shultz and Clinton had proclaimed that the process would be totally fair. Now we know that it wasn’t!

If you’re referring to the Republicans, the RNC should be run by the Prez Candidate as it has been in the past regardless of their view of his candidacy, to do less would not only be unfair but also blocks change and growth in the party as per the vote of their own members. Of course, the back-room interference is nothing new for the Republicans and is partly why their party is destined for the graveyard!

Hopefully, a third (and maybe fourth) party will rise to challenge the Democrats because the only thing worse than a two party system is a one party system!

Voting for Ralph Nader got us W.

No the Supreme Court gave us W, along with a lot of help from JEB! When the recount was completed, Gore should have won Florida depending on the which standard employed for counting the hanging chad ballots. There is also no doubt that the deliberately confusing ballot engineered by JEB’s administration was a major factor in the outcome.

It gets so old hearing that crapola about how voting for Nader gave us Bush. What about the Supreme Court? What about Republican election officials all over the country rigging the process against likely Democrat voters? What about the hundreds of thousands of registered Democrats that voted for Bush? Sure, Bush was/is an elitist dimwit from old New England money and Gore was the obvious choice to any rational person. Since when do the American people make rational choices? After all, we are talking about a country where McDonalds is considered a good restaurant and people think Starbucks coffee is good.

OldCoalAustralia since the 1920s, but only first and second choice (called “reserve vote”). Ireland has since the 1950s. The method does work.

This America folks! You can vote for whomever you want… it’s called a write in candidate! How do you think Mickey, Donald, Scooby, Darth Vader & Voldermort do so well on November 8th?

On my planet, an incumbent CAN NOT campaign for re-election. His minions can do it for him, but he can not, and will not, take time off from the job he was hired to do, just to stump around the country trying to keep that job. Nor can he campaign for others beyond a single endorsement. If said minions are also employees of the government, they can not run the campaign during their normal working hours.Should any incumbent be found to be campaigning, his pay shall be docked, and he will face civil charges of nonfeasance. Our lawmakers are aware that some positions are “around the clock” jobs, and as such, prohibit any form of campaigning, at any time. This is a brief overview. There are details, and some flexibility, but the basis of this law stands on its own.We will be returning to our planet after we have observed, and manipulated, the outcome of your “election process”.We also miss the food.