When they ballot stack, we ballot stack back.
I mean if they don’t like underhanded ballot stacking practices then they shouldn’t do it themselves but better yet, let’s criminalize it and force the Republicans to not be ballot stacking dicks.
Yep, the only way to get republican tactics made illegal is for democrats and leftists to do it. Gerrymandering? Fine until Dems do it. Spoiler candidates? Fine until Dems do it. Being a traitor, kiddy fucker, and insurrectionist? We’ll see!
Our system favors the fascist conservatives at every turn.
Fuck the very notion of a spoiler candidate. If government officials can say who is and isn’t allowed to run for office we don’t have a democracy. Ranked choice voting is a complete solve for this non-issue, giving cops and prosecutors another tool to bonk dissenters on the head with will only make shit worse.
I would say approval voting is a complete solve, ranked choice is still susceptible to the spoiler effect since it may be in your interest to rank a candidate higher based upon them being the exact opposite of the candidate you definetly don’t want to win. If it is runoff ranked choice then it is mathematically solved, but you are relying on everyone following the correct voting strategy.
I was speaking more generally in regards to their underhanded tactics but I mean sure. I’m with ya on that, and that would be the best outcome for all.
(Canada) Just look at the recent Toronto mayoral result for an example of what conservatives do. We had over 50 mayoral candidates, all listed alphabetically by last name.
The progressive option won by 13% thankfully. The guy with the stupid name who looks like Lex Luthor ran on selling the city’s water to AI data centers and turning the waterfront into a private airport for rich people. Look at who won #3
Hell fucking no, “ballot stacking” is a made up bullshit term pushed by dogshit wannabe tyrant political consultant assholes who don’t like voters having choices. If we’re going to be a democracy then anyone should be able to run for office regardless of their name.
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And how do we decide which candidates actually want to run for office and which aren’t serious? We normalize this kind of thinking and it’ll be a few months before government officials are saying anyone who isn’t a registered Republican isn’t a serious candidate.
Fwiw, I was pissed when I wrote my first comment and more of an asshole about this than was necessary, but that’s because this whole idea of restricting who can run for office is fucking terrifying.
In this and a lot of other cases where you’ve got this kind of underhanded ballot stacking, there’s a lot of crap that just doesn’t pass the sniff test. You’ve got same name just like here, that’s happened a few times already, a candidate that has had no previous political history that just up and decided to run in a high profile election last minute, and literally like in this case and the case in Arizona in 2010 by Republicans, the paper work to run wasn’t even filed by candidate themselves but by some political consultant from another party.
Plenty of signs of ballot stacking shenanigan bullshit in these kinds of rare-ish occasions and who’s even talking about restricting who can run for office here? No one. I certainly didn’t. I did say make ballot stacking illegal but never suggested that we restrict who can run for office based on party affiliation.
Republican’s probably wouldn’t even entertain that idea, they’d just get rid of voting completely and do a military coup with Kegseth.
Not mentioned in the article: Alaska uses ranked choice voting.
A solution for anyone confused about which similarly-named candidate to vote for is to rank the other #2.
Here is a sample ballot for anyone who would like to decide whether the names or voting process create confusion. I think it’s pretty clear that the one with
(Registered Republican) Incumbentnext to his name is the Republican incumbent.To be fair, I mean the US literacy rate has us pegged at 54% reading at or below a sixth grade level so…
Let’s just bring back literacy tests for voting, no way that could go wrong /s
And when it’s not that kind of reading comprehension problem, it’s things written to be intentionally confusing. Those are generally saved for ballot questions/referendums. Maybe all part of the same problem.
Yean, two distinct issues that does compound the issue like a shitty anti-voting Captain Planet.
The MSM making a big deal of the supposed recruitment is a big reminder of how they want to create a bothsides world. This:
- Has already been done multiple times by Republicans
- Isn’t really a problem because of ranked choice voting
- Has already been ruled as not a problem by the Alaska SC
If Peltola was behind this it feels more like bait for the Republican’s to lose their shit over a non-issue than a legitimate dirty tactic. Like I respect that she’s willing to play for keeps, but also hope she didn’t think this was some master strategy. If she did then I’m really worried.
It’s a funny demonstration of why ranked choice voting is cool, but the NYT is treating this as if they uncovered unconscionable election tampering. Which then fuels actually dangerous Republican stunts like this.
