The idea of Trump Trading is for people in safe states who support Clinton to pair up with people in swing states who support a third party candidate. They agree to each vote for the other’s candidate.
It’s pretty win-win, assuming you agree that Trump is the greater evil. If you’re a Clinton supporter in a safe state then it’s like shipping your vote to Florida where it has a much higher chance of determining the election. If you’re a third party supporter then your goal is to make sure your candidate gets at least 5% of the popular vote, that being the threshold for federal campaign funding. Or in any case to maximize the fraction of the popular vote you get. You don’t care where your vote is cast so no harm shipping it to a safe state.
Just by talking with them! The trade is so win-win that even if you only thought there was, say, a 50% chance of your partner following through, that’s still a good deal for you as a Clinton supporter. If you’re a third party supporter, hopefully that convinces you that there’s little reason for your partner to defect.
Yes, it has even held up in court.
I recommend posting on Facebook. Here’s my own post. I didn’t know any 3rd party supporters in swing states but after posting that a friend immediately introduced me to one.
Yes, here are the ones I know of:
So I recommend people just broadcast their willingness to trade via whatever channels make sense. Maybe use the hashtag #trumptraders?
You could also try SwingVoterGo.com to find your Facebook friends in swing states and ask them directly. Or do the same thing by typing “my friends who live in florida” in Facebook’s searchbox.
Xenophobia, climate science denying, his authoritarian tendencies — expressing desire to limit freedom of the press and such, his lack of understanding of the game theory surrounding nuclear weapons, the possibility of him surrounding himself with yes-men and firing everyone competent and destroying the whole republic.
I don’t know how likely it is but the worst case is extremely bad.
Just stipulate that with your vote-trading partner: if your states’ “safe” and “swing” statuses change then the trade is off. You can and should stay in touch with them the whole time.
Thanks to Shyaporn Theerakulstit for pointing me to a warning about this, particularly the #NeverTrump app which may have attracted trolls and could be an argument for sticking to your own social network.
But I think it’s still fine to do this with strangers. You can chat with them and convince yourself they’re for real. Remember the point is that if you’re a Hillary supporter in a safe state then if you do get duped you’re not actually hurting Hillary’s chances. I think the worst that trolls can do is make vote trading slightly less effective. If vote trading goes mainstream among Trump haters it’s still a huge boon.