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About a week ago, I shared a post where I came out in support of Mitt Romney<\/a> as the person I will be voting for come November (barring any unforeseen events). Note that I don\u2019t think he\u2019s the perfect candidate, but seeing\u2019s how St. Michael the Archangel isn\u2019t on the ballot, Romney will get my vote, as the incumbent, who I believe is bent on destroying true religious liberty (and for other troublesome quirks<\/a>), will never, ever, receive my vote.<\/p>\n I know that many want to cast their votes morally, don\u2019t trust Mitt Romney, think he\u2019s not Pro-Life enough, untrustworthy, etc., etc. And I know that this horse has been beaten to death on Catholic blogs and in other venues but voting third party is a waste of your vote, contrary to your attempts to reason your way out of this fact. You want to see proof, so here goes.<\/p>\n Why won\u2019t I vote third party? To me the answer is obvious: math. As background, I studied political science in college, see, and though my concentration was in international relations, my other concentration was in comparative politics. So when I wasn\u2019t bolstering my future resume with economics and accounting courses (UCLA doesn\u2019t offer minors, nor does it offer an undergraduate degree in business administration), I studied what you might loosely be able to call \u201cinternational political economy.\u201d<\/p>\n And I learned that here in the U.S., we inherited our system of single-member districts, and \u201cfirst past the post\u201d voting systems, from our English forebears. Sure, I had learned this in high school civics class too, but that was more of a cursory glance than an in depth analysis. Also, I learned what we don\u2019t have here in the United States: proportional representation, direct democracy, potential for coalition governments, etc.<\/p>\n But back to the voting numbers angle, I also learned how mathematically the \u201cfirst past the post\u201d system works. It\u2019s where no candidate has to get a majority of votes to win, but just the most votes to win, which, in short order, results in a system with only two viable parties, to the detriment of all others. By the term \u201cviable\u201d I mean having an actual chance to win an election.<\/p>\n I could continue to spill ink on this fact, and bore you to tears with stuff I learned in rational voter theory class too, but seeing how this is the Age of New Media, I\u2019m going to spare you all that. Instead, I will share this brief video on how the \u201cfirst past the post system works. Caveat: the video is negative toward this particular system, but I\u2019m not interested in other systems that may, or may not, be better than what we have. I just want to help you understand what we do have, and why voting for anyone, known, or unknown, virtuous, or scandalous, who represents a third party is a waste of your vote, and possibly a breach of your civic duty. The same thing goes for writing in another candidate on your ballot. Take a look,<\/p>\n The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained.<\/strong><\/p>\n