why don't people vote Independent? I've never really understood why people don't use their...

Graylight · 51-55, F

I know that here in Florida, registered independents cannot vote in primaries. That ties our hands in the process, and many of us just aren't willing to do that. But I agree - technically we have any number of political parties but people believe they must vote Democrat or Republican. Look where that's gotten us.

CopperCicada · M

Because of this delusion called the two party system.

Democrats are just anti-Republicans and vice versa.

And if you don't vote Republican you hate God and America. And if you don't vote Democrat you hate women and children and diversity.

So people cave according to social pressure and guilt. Fear. Anxiety.

Like one page adds in papers saying one can't be a Christian and vote for this guy. Like being race and gender checked and guilted to vote for the other guy. Hillary rolling out Steinem to guilt young women.

When you are presented with two choices, A and not-A, it's hard to think that there is another choice B.

Femme4thewin · 22-25, F

Dude your religion cannot determines what people do with their lives and bodies.

OggggO · 36-40, M

Because the combination of "winner take all" and "you can only vote for one candidate" inevitably leads to a two party system. If whoever gets the plurality of votes gets all the representation, and you can't indicate more than one preference, then most people are going to go with who they feel is their safest choice, not necessarily who they want most. Thus, say there are 5 parties, one party consistently getting 30% of the vote and the rest somewhere between 15% and 20% each. That first party is going to get almost all of the positions up for election, only losing in areas where they are locally unpopular. Any other party's best bet then, is to merge with the most ideologically similar party, bolstering their numbers into the lead. Then other parties would also have to merge to remain competitive, and so on until there were only two left, each appealing to broad but contrasting demographics.

Xuan12 · 31-35, M

Both the GOP and the Democratic parties are actually more like coalitions than singular parties. In our winner-take-all system, losing by even just one vote means you get nothing. It means half the constituents don't get represented at all. It's not proportional representation. A party that loses is a party with nothing. So they each individual party looked around, found the other party that had the most compatible platform, and joined together on the same ticket, to combine their voting bases. Better to win with a compromise than lose and get nothing. This process simply continued until there were only two coalition super-parties, at which time they consolidated the election and finance laws to secure their own positions and prevent third parties from being able to run independently as much as possible.

hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M

In an election you vote floor the person most likely to change the world according to your set of principles. This requires the person having a reasonable chance winning the election.

SW-User

The U.S. is intended to be disunited by the way it is set up. Until people realize that and wake up to all the matters going about AROUND this pointless distraction, we have to vote "left this" "right that" and all that jazz :/

SW-User

What if I do not believe in God? Isn't that a "right" too? Don't I have the "right" not to have my personal choices dictated by other's religious beliefs?

MistyCee

There may well be a third party choice this time around, but it may not be exactly what you're looking for.

It sounds like you're looking for a traditional Republican platform, honestly, and your far from alone.

cherokeepatti · 61-69, F

I do

SW-User

Because people are told over and over again that if they don't vote the one way or the other, they're wasting their vote. And they [i]believe[/i] it.

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