It's time for real democracy. | | | | |
| If you’re like us, you’re probablysick and tired of hearing the propaganda that voting for Jill Steinand other Green candidates means you’re “spoiling the election” or“wasting your vote.” The political and media establishment promotes“spoiler” hysteria to scare people away from voting for what theyactually want, and to keep people voting for a two-party system thatdoesn’t serve their interests. But what they don’t want people to knowis that there’s a simple upgrade to our voting system that would make“spoiler” hysteria obsolete: Ranked-Choice Voting. For years now, polls have shownthat a huge majority - roughly 60% - of Americans believe thetwo-party system doesn’t represent them, and we need a new majorparty. Yet despite their unpopularity, the same two parties maintain astranglehold on power by campaigning on the same message: “The otherparty is worse, so you have to vote for us as the lesser evil.”Instead of earning votes by working to improve voters’ lives, they canextort votes by threatening that the other side will beworse. This two-party trap has led ourcountry to a bad place: endless war and genocide, social and economicbreakdown, climate collapse, and a democracy on life support. But itdoesn’t have to be this way, and ranked-choice voting can change thegame. | | | | With ranked-choice voting (RCV) youcan vote for your favorite candidates without any worry about "wastingyour vote," "splitting the vote" or "spoiling" an election. It’ssimple: You can rank your 1st choice, 2nd choice, and so on, and ifyour 1st choice doesn't win, your vote goes to your 2nd choice. Thisprocess continues until one candidate wins a majority - and they can'twin with less than 50%, which has happened in 4 of the last 8Presidential elections. Decade after decade of lesser-evilvoting has enabled both establishment parties to do less and less forthe people and cater to the demands of their wealthy elite donors. RCVcan break this vicious cycle by freeing people to vote FOR what theyactually want, rather than AGAINST what they fear. That would givevoters real choice and real power. In the Green Party, we’ve beenfighting for ranked-choice voting for decades, but the politicians inpower refuse to pass it because they don’t want you to have a realchoice. And that’s one more reason they don’t deserve your vote. Infact, there’s been a concerted effort to suppress RCV by politicianslike CA governor Gavin Newsom, who in 2019 vetoed a popular bill toexpand use of RCV in California. Despite establishment opposition,the movement for RCV has made steady progress, passing forms of RCV inover 50 cities and counties across the country, as well as the stateof Maine. Communities that use RCV have higher turnout and happiervoters. That's because RCV is awin-win-win for voters: it promotes majority rule, discouragesnegative campaigning, and means voters don't have to worry about"splitting the vote." RCV is a gamechanger, but it’s alsojust a first step towards revitalizing our democracy to empower thepeople. Another critically-needed reform is proportionalrepresentation for legislative elections, a type of system used inmost democracies around the world where if a party gets 25% of thevote, they take 25% of the seats. Proportional representation producesgovernments that are more representative and responsive, and allowsfor healthy multi-party democracy where the true diversity of asociety can be fairly represented. As the movement for RCV gainsmomentum, however, we have to be careful about attempts to co-optvoters’ enthusiasm for changing the broken system. In recent years,we’ve seen a well-funded effort to conflate RCV with “Top 4”primaries, which began in CA and WA as “Top 2” primaries. Now thereare ballot measures in several states that include variants of “Top4,” which are marketed as “open primaries,” along with a distorted anddiluted form of RCV. The problem is, similar to “Top 2,”the “Top 4” system requires “jungle primaries” that put candidates ofall parties together and eliminates all but the top 4 vote-getters,which massively tilts the playing field towards well-funded,establishment-backed candidates with the resources to turn out a largeprimary vote. To make things worse, these primaries don’t even useRCV, making them no better than elections under the existing brokensystem. A better name for “Top 4” primarieswould be “limited-choice voting,” when what we need is the opposite:more voices and more choices. But this well-funded “reform” appears tobe aimed at co-opting the movement for RCV to further entrench thetwo-party system and pay-to-play politics. And while genuine RCV canbe a stepping stone to proportional representation, “Top 4” wouldperpetuate the system of single-seat elections, which would be anobstacle to enacting proportional representation. For all these reasons, in 2024we fully support ballot measures for genuine ranked-choicevoting in Oregon (Measure 117) and multiple cities includingWashington DC (Initiative 83), Richmond CA (Measure L), Oak Park ILand Peoria IL; and we oppose measures for “Top 4”primaries in Colorado (Proposition 131) and Idaho(Proposition 1), and “Top 5” in Nevada (Question 3). | | It’s clearer than ever that weurgently need a voting system that frees us all to vote for what wewant, not just against what we fear. Democracy needs a moral compass,and that compass is our values. If we can't vote our values, we'relost at sea. It's time to break free from the2-party trap and bring real democracy to America with ranked-choicevoting. Every vote for our campaign helps to build the demand for aworld where we can all forget the “lesser evil,” and vote for thegreater good like our lives depend on it - because they do. | | Thank you for everything you do topower up this movement for real democracy! In solidarity andgratitude, The Stein/Ware 2024 Team | | | | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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