this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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You've said that choosing options 3, or 4 will send a message to change party opinions for the next cycle. But the message it sends is ambiguous at best. It could be interpreted to mean that people are unhappy with the system and demand change; but it could also mean that people are indifferent, or disengaged, or ill-informed, or have been prevented / dissuaded from exercising their right to vote. Or perhaps it could be interpreted on policy grounds: perhaps votes are unhappy with genocide... or perhaps not, perhaps they are war-hungry. Perhaps want stricter rules to control anti-social behaviour ... or the opposite.
If you don't vote at all, your message is basically just noise. It communicates nothing, because whatever message you think it sends it could also be sending the opposite. Voting third-party would be less bad, except that many third parties are exist disingenuously as a tactical way to split votes, to increase the change of victory for the party of opposite values to what the third party purports to represent.
If lets say 10% of people vote for the green party. We know that what people want relates to their messaging and they'd try and take voters away from them as it's easier than taking republicans or people that refuse to vote since you know what the green party stands for. That's different than voting for the social democrats and so on.
You can't lump options 3 and 4 together like that.
Not voting sends the message that people are dissatisfied or feel disenfranchised. Now if the Democrats win they won't care to change. Or even if they nearly win. But if they loose badly they'll have to cater to these voters. And thus a pivot would be in order. But like we're both said, not voting harder to take get a party to move in that direction