[ExI] Piker

[Adrian Tymes]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2026 at 7:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> …> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
> >…That has been settled.  One person, one listing, even if that person has multiple party nominations.  The person in this situation would not appear on the ballot twice.  The number of party nominations does not affect this…
>
> That is up to the states however.  Saying it is settled is in overstatement.

Looking into this - there are cases where a single person might be
listed multiple times, but the laws in each such case require the
votes to be added when the votes are for the same person.  For
example, New York Election Law § 7-104(4)(b) expressly provides for
someone nominated by multiple parties to appear on multiple ballot
lines - and 9-112(4) addresses what happens when a voter marks more
than one listing for the same candidate: only one vote counts.  I cite
New York since this is apparently exactly what happened with Zohran
Mamdani last year, between his Democratic Party and Working Families
Party nominations.

> But what if… the outcome is
>
>
>
> Incumbent Dan Sullivan                 44.5
>
> Mary Peltola                                      45.5
>
> Decoy Dan Sullivan                          10
>
>
>
> OK now, what if… Peltola’s “victory” turns over the senate, so the trick worked.  Can you imagine how the 2028 election will go?  Every irrelevant third party will nominate a guy whose legal name is Kamala Harris or Alexandria Cortez.  A ballot could become very confusing.  Utter chaos could result.

I could even see some people legally changing their names to do this.
This would have dire consequences for parties that rely on
low-information voters, which would make parties that rely on
high-information voters (who are far less likely to be affected by
such things) more dominant.

Which might be argued to be not fair, perhaps.  Raising educational
standards (the opposite of what the Republicans have been trying for
the past few decades) would reduce the overall impact.  Granted, this
would also directly threaten those who wish to reserve tricking
low-information voters to further the political careers of those who
favor corrupt and authoritarian policies, and from that angle I view
the legality of this to be a net good.