When will you stop voting for the lesser of two evils? (Poll)

[alc]

25. voting for someone who can't win still shows the winner what we want

When everyone (most people) votes for someone who can win, the winner doesn't know what policies really matter to us. If 10% of us want green but 9.5% vote for a D they don't like since green can't win, then the winner can rationalize that only 0.5% want green policy. If all 10% of us voted green then the winner (D or R) will pay attention because that 10% can turn things around next election.

That's why primaries are so important and where it's especially useful to vote for someone who can't win. There's a huge difference between Hilary running away with the primaries and Hilary seeing that one part of the country prefers (i.e. beat her) the environmental candidate and another part prefers the union candidate and another prefers the anti-wall-street candidate ... And people in those parts of the country need to vote for the person they prefer even if that person no chance of beating the R.

General elections are more complicated but it is important for the winners to know what policies the people want, not just the party people voted for. And when everyone votes for one of two candidates the winner will ignore exit polls and just say "I won so people want whatever I want". I wouldn't expect anyone at DU to vote against the D in the general. But if you can't convince friends/family to vote D it's a good idea to argue for a left/progressive 3rd party rather than tell them to stick with a winner.