missancap

Obviously not OP, but

1) Everyone does say that and everyone is wrong. It’s just something that has a superficial plausibility so third parties are particularly ignored every four years when it’s the most important. Every election is the right election to vote for who you think is best.

2) It’s equally dangerous and idiotic. We won’t get higher quality candidates until people start voting third party, or write-in if there are no good candidates.

Side note, your vote basically doesn’t matter. Every vote matters only if the election is decided by a single vote. Most people like to think they have a say, but they intuitively understand that their vote amounts to essentially nothing. That’s why voter turnout is always so low, because a vote is such a low level of influence over what happens that for most people it’s not worth the effort it takes to do and I can’t say I blame them. Your vote can be thrown away and it will make no difference, so if you’re going to vote, you might as well throw it away in a manner that eases your conscience.

Everybody gets denied twice, so yeah you basically need a layer. And it usually takes several years for this process to play out, btw. It’s not a great time for the people who currently can’t work and won’t be getting any income anytime soon, but I guess that’s what you get with the government.