> However, the topic of this submission is the US Congress.
The topic of the comment was about not voting because you think it makes no difference. If everyone develops that mentality, no-one will vote and elections will be decided only by the most extreme people. For those who do not believe tactical voting is not a thing in the US or is "stupid", look no further than the recent Texas Democratic primary, where selecting the best _candidate_ (rather than the person who might be closer to the ideals of many voters when in office) was achieved via exactly that means.
> Perhaps they can count votes more accurately in the UK.
There are no voting machines, everything is done by hand, under the strict observance of the campaign teams for each candidate. Every non-obvious vote is presented to all candidates teams with a proposed disposition. There are, to a first approximation, never allegations of process issues, because they would be so absurd on their face.
> The topic of the comment was about not voting because you think it makes no difference.
Not exactly. The "No reason to vote then" commenter was referring to a hypothetical Rubio vs. Newsom contest, whereas they expressed some enthusiasm for Ro Khanna and/or Thomas Massie. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47809316
In other words, the commenter wants to vote for someone they perceive as good, not for someone they perceive as only the lesser of two evils.
And I believe this attitude is not at all tactical. They aren't saying, "I'll only vote for Khanna to prevent him from losing by one vote." The margin doesn't even matter if there's someone good to vote for.
> If everyone develops that mentality, no-one will vote and elections will be decided only by the most extreme people.
If everyone develops the mentality of not voting for the lesser evil, then evil candidates will receive no votes, which would be a good outcome.
> For those who do not believe tactical voting is not a thing in the US or is "stupid"
What do you mean by "not a thing"? Of course people vote tactically. People say they vote tactically, and I believe them. What I dispute is the effectiveness of it.
I wouldn't say that tactical voting is "stupid" per se. What I think is that tactical voting is not somehow mandatory or uniquely rational. I wouldn't chastise people for voting their conscience and refusing to give in to "lesser evil" calculations.
Let me put it this way: if, as some argue, the only rational choice is to vote for a duopolist candidate, no matter how bad, as long as one dupolist is less bad than the other, then we are doomed to the same duopoly until humanity becomes extinct (which I would say is sooner with the duopoly in place), and the duopolists are destined to get worse, more evil over time, because there is no incentive for politicians not to be evil in a lesser evil voting situation.
The topic of the comment was about not voting because you think it makes no difference. If everyone develops that mentality, no-one will vote and elections will be decided only by the most extreme people. For those who do not believe tactical voting is not a thing in the US or is "stupid", look no further than the recent Texas Democratic primary, where selecting the best _candidate_ (rather than the person who might be closer to the ideals of many voters when in office) was achieved via exactly that means.
> Perhaps they can count votes more accurately in the UK.
There are no voting machines, everything is done by hand, under the strict observance of the campaign teams for each candidate. Every non-obvious vote is presented to all candidates teams with a proposed disposition. There are, to a first approximation, never allegations of process issues, because they would be so absurd on their face.