Voting by Moral Principles or Likelihood of Winning?

[scameter18]

If one candidate with superior moral values has a far less chance of winning than a candidate with inferior moral values, which should we prefer? For example, of Candidate A supports abortion only in cases of rape and incest, and Candidate B believes abortion is wrong in all circumstances, but Candidate A has a much higher chance of winning the race than Candidate B, and both are going up against Candidate C who is fully pro-choice, which should we prefer, A or B? Chance of winning or moral values?

Thanks for the help. God bless.

 

[JerryZ]

If one candidate with superior moral values has a far less chance of winning than a candidate with inferior moral values, which should we prefer? For example, of Candidate A supports abortion only in cases of rape and incest, and Candidate B believes abortion is wrong in all circumstances, but Candidate A has a much higher chance of winning the race than Candidate B, and both are going up against Candidate C who is fully pro-choice, which should we prefer, A or B? Chance of winning or moral values?

Thanks for the help. God bless.

This has been beaten to death already, the Church teaches for you to try to get the best deal possible and NO you are not comitting sin for voting the lesser evil.

You want to avoid the greater evil to suceed by chosing the best candidate that can effectively win.
Voting for the perfect candidate which in turn lets the worse guy win is not an option open to you morally.
Even NOT voting allowing the greater evil to win is not morally acceptable.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

The US has a two party system, not some three party system as you theorize.

 

[JRKH]

The US has a two party system, not some three party system as you theorize.

This is incorrect. “The US”, in it’s constitution, make no mention of a “party system” at all. Nor am I aware of any law that prevents the formation of political parties.
Political parties evolved early on as a natural outgrowth of like minded people clustering together. The idea of two parties seems to have stemmed from the idea of various groups with similar ideas and desires coming together in compromise in order to enhance their chances of winning.

The US has multiple “parties”. When I cast my last ballot there were (if I remember correctly) five or six choices for president and at least three or four for Congress and State offices, plus spaces for a write in.
This Article on Wikipedia lists 5 “Major Parties” in the US based on, "Those parties that have “an independent state organization… in a majority of the states”.

Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

If one candidate with superior moral values has a far less chance of winning than a candidate with inferior moral values, which should we prefer? For example, of Candidate A supports abortion only in cases of rape and incest, and Candidate B believes abortion is wrong in all circumstances, but Candidate A has a much higher chance of winning the race than Candidate B, and both are going up against Candidate C who is fully pro-choice, which should we prefer, A or B? Chance of winning or moral values?

Thanks for the help. God bless.

We should prefer the candidate with higher moral values.
It is not always possible to act on that preference since there are a number of factors that must go into the decision making process.

Peace
James

 

[Corki]

If one candidate with superior moral values has a far less chance of winning than a candidate with inferior moral values, which should we prefer? For example, of Candidate A supports abortion only in cases of rape and incest, and Candidate B believes abortion is wrong in all circumstances, but Candidate A has a much higher chance of winning the race than Candidate B, and both are going up against Candidate C who is fully pro-choice, which should we prefer, A or B? Chance of winning or moral values?

Thanks for the help. God bless.

We shouldn’t vote simply based on a person’s moral values. We vote based on what that person will do and that includes what they might stop happening if one of the other candidates gets elected. We should vote to create the best environment for the moral good to be supported and evil to be supressed.

In your scenario, is Candidate C a truly viable candidate? If not, voting for Candidate A who has a better chance of supressing evil than Candidate C, is a better use of your vote, according to Catholic principles, than a vote for Candidate A.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

If one candidate with superior moral values has a far less chance of winning than a candidate with inferior moral values, which should we prefer? For example, of Candidate A supports abortion only in cases of rape and incest, and Candidate B believes abortion is wrong in all circumstances, but Candidate A has a much higher chance of winning the race than Candidate B, and both are going up against Candidate C who is fully pro-choice, which should we prefer, A or B? Chance of winning or moral values?

Thanks for the help. God bless.

Either one is consistent with Church teaching in general terms, and the determination of which is best in a specific case is left to us.

This is not to say that in a particular case that there is not a right and wrong answer, or that we shouldn’t try to figure out which one is better and vote that way, but only that if we do our best to make a sound decision based on moral principles having thoughtfully and prayerfully considered the options for a reasonable time, we don’t have to worry that if we’re wrong we’ve sinned.

Further, I don’t think lesser of two evils can rightly be called not voting on moral values, but rather voting on moral values together with the desire to avoid what harm could be caused if the most evil candidate won - which is itself a moral value.

As you may gather from that, I tend to favor voting for the lesser of two evils whenever there is a noticeably large difference between the stances of the two candidates who actually have a chance at winning (because third party candidates have a pretty near 0 chance of winning the presidency), but again, these are my views and while arrived at them using reason and my best understanding of Church teaching, they are not binding on you (and neither is anyone else’s views either).

(For offices where third parties can win, I would more carefully consider voting for a third party candidate, but given the relative rarity of such candidates winning in most cases (and depending also on the possible impact the office could have on the issues), I would likely have to pretty convinced that the third party candidate could actually win.)

And again, this is not to say that there is not a right and wrong choice or that we shouldn’t try to convince each other about which choice is right and wrong, only that there is no sin in thoughtfully and prayerfully coming to the wrong conclusion after spending a reasonable amount of time and trying to consider the principles taught to us by the Church.

So - my answer would be (especially in a case like the current election) that we should vote A, but again if your reasoning leads you to support C then while I can (and will) think that you are wrong I cannot accuse you of going against Church teaching or anything similar.

 

[scameter18]

Thanks for the help. This makes it about as clear as I thought it was, but somewhat hoped it wasn’t. God bless.