Nah. Not gonna derail it cause I really am interested in the views. First/farthest, it doesn't really matter. It's a term, nothing more. The fact is we are generally a plurality voting system, although some places do have elections where the top three get the three seats kind of thing. If we had that for US Reps instead of districts, we could see an interesting mix take place in congress every two years. Put senators on the same 6 year schedule and let the top two of how ever many run get it and we'd see a change there including some independent senators.

Draug, did you read my Germany wiki? They have a pretty awesome system.

All thse changes could only come about after an Article V convention or a revolution. Neither are likely. The two-party system is the way things are. Deal with it.

Invictus - If you don't want to suggest real possibilities for change and want to just live in misery, fine. But I look to trying to improve my lot in life and improve our country. Even if it is just a cerebral exercise and not realistic, it si still worth havign the discussion. Those who don't even talk or think about how to change things for the better are doomed to live in mediocrity.

@red - how does that help with single seats like PResident and Governor? Now, I know in some cities the mayhor is the top vote getter amongst the council seats and that the council seats are the "top N get 'em" and you vote for your favorite N candidates. But we would have to do something like that for Presidenby and Governorships, so how do we go about doing that?

But it's a waste of time. It simply will not happen since it's too hard to do. Just switching to a popular vote for president is a tremendous challenge, you're talking about remaking American political culture whole cloth. It's all so much navel-gazing.

Hereditary Peers are the way forward. Elections will always produce leaders who have mastered the art of lying, cheating, and general conmanship. You get nothing but silver spooned popularists who spend their lives trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Hereditary Peers, by contrast, are simply born into the role and as such you get a far broader range of personalities and opinions. They can never be removed from power and as such have no fear of saying something that may be perceived as politically incorrect. They wear what they like, say what they like, and vote for what they believe in rather than what a party orders them to do.

Israel has 30+ parties, many of them Arab extremists and many Jewish extremists. As long as nobody proposes we go to those lengths, I'm cool with any arguments. There are benefits to two-party but there are benefits to multi-party above two as well. Like Draug, I'm interested in other ideas…

I would agree semck that the states need to be multi-party, though I don't think Congress is a huge problem. The election ranges in the House are so small that there is really not much control over that. If the districts were drawn to make the votes closer, it would only create more controversy and inability to vote representationally, which I think would be problematic. The Senate is rarely too terrible either direction.

I think both of these would be an effect of a third party emergence, not a cause.

Again, so what? Invictus, do you not like to discuss what could be tried? If not, why bother posting here? This is a discussion, nothing more. It is purely cereberal. No one is asking you to go out and *do* anything. Just brainstorm and have fun. Not every venture in life or thread on this forum has to incite peoiple to act or strive for change. Sometimes it's good just to discuss ideas.

@Draug, why bother electing a President? Or a governor? I never did that and I live a happy life! ;-)

What about dumping Representative districts and going to a "top N get the seats" type plurailty system? Everyone gets to vote for their favorite candidates up to the total number of seats in their state and then the top N candidates get those seats?

"What about dumping Representative districts and going to a "top N get the seats" type plurailty system? Everyone gets to vote for their favorite candidates up to the total number of seats in their state and then the top N candidates get those seats?"

That would really screw rural areas. In my world, Indianapolis and Lake County (Gary, near Chicago) would outweigh much of the rest of the state, and those two counties generally go Democrat. Unless it is going by a popularity vote, which *may* work depending on the place, then that would probably end up bad.

Draug, that has several problems. In large states, representatives end up with many millions of constituents, and the connection between Representative and constituents is completely gone. That might not seem like a problem, but I think it is. Currently, Reps still have a motivation to be somewhat responsive to the needs of their constituents. But if you're Rep #16 out of 36 in Texas, why are you going to pay much attention to the individual needs of the people in some city of 100k? Right now, those cities/areas have a lot of say, at least over one Rep. Then, it would be gone.

To be honest, I'm not convinced our two party system is so broken. It would need a better argument than has been offered. As it is, progress is often slow, and that is frustrating to people outside the mainstream of either party, but that will be true no matter what. It would be a disaster if it weren't true -- the country would jerk around.

And yet, even now, the two parties do respond to any popular movement. If enough support for something swells, that movement will be coopted into one of the two parties, because they're both always hungry for votes, looking to gobble up new groups. Just look at this election. You think either party will oppose immigration reform again? I think not. The importance of that issue has been felt and will be responded to. So it has been in the past with even third-party movements like the progressives or the populists, which ended up getting what they wanted done by merging into a party.

The two party system works fine. It leads to stability and slow change, but that is a good thing, and it DOES lead to people's issues all being represented, eventually.

The two party system still works. It's the politicians and media that are the problem. We need term limits for Congress and the media needs to become objective.

It's not so much the two party system is broken as much as party politics in general sucks. I like having a ballot with multiple candidates and *no party* affiliation listed. You could keep districting (but make the districts have meaning, losing the gerrymandering that currently happens) and still lose that little "Democratic Party" or "Republican Party" by their names. We should be voting for people based on their ideals, platforms, and yes, personal standards (sorry, you cheat on your wife, how do I know you won't cheta on me?) Instead, the sheeple vote for rep or dem based on what their parents voted for who did the same who did the same etc etc etc...

"It starts at the regional level Draug. Get enough local and state level members elected, then move on to Congressmen. If you can destroy the Democratic and Republican machines at the town and county level, you can start to see results"
^^^This

that being said, on the two party system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&feature=edu&list=PL7679C7ACE93A5638

3rd party advocates still have not answered the question of how you get a governable majority with all these parties. Multi-partyism + Presidentialism = total government paralysis.

" I like having a ballot with multiple candidates and *no party* affiliation listed."

That's a terrible idea. These ballots are pages long and I'm not going to learn anything from wasting my time researching random judges that I don't already know from knowing their party affiliation. Ohio's policy of depriving people information about judicial candidates is obnoxious.

They need a Party Line button so I can stop wasting my time.

There are plenty of countries which eschew party politics and they're all disasters. Stable parties with reliable coalitions of support make for stable government.

"There is, however, no "post" that the winning candidate must pass in order to win, as the winning candidate is required only to have received the highest number of votes in his or her favour."

Oh, I see. I just assumed you were talking about presidential elections.

The most realistic way out of a two party system is for the Republican Party to do what it's been threatening to do for years and split down the tea party line. With any luck this will encourage the Democrats to do the same and the US will get it's first genuine left wing party.

"The most realistic way out of a two party system is for the Republican Party to do what it's been threatening to do for years and split down the tea party line. With any luck this will encourage the Democrats to do the same and the US will get it's first genuine left wing party."


Aaarrrgghhhh! A two-party system is the direct result of having a first-past-the-post voting system (our presidential system goes a long way too, but the American form is so unique as to make comparisons difficult).

If the GOP were to split, it would not mean we would have truels between three parties. After one election where the Sarah Palin pulls in 19% of the vote, Zombie Reagan gets 35%, and Hilary is elected president with 46%, the two right-wing parties would come back together. It's OBVIOUS to anyone who thinks about it logically that when you just need a plurality to win then splitting up a major party just means the other side will win. It't not a conspiracy that keeps a third party from becoming a reality, it's a direct result of the system. A system which is older than political parties, by the way.

Good God you people are thick.

haha invictus nobody wants to hear that, apparently. People let me spell it out to you in one simple sentence, since we seem to be struggling here.

The fact that we have had, since the founding of our union, only two major parties at any given time is due to the design of our electoral system; it is not a coincidence.

Invictus, YJ - This thread is about discussing how to break away from the system, not repeating over and over ad naseum why it exists. If the way to breaj away is to change how we hold elections, lay it out. But stop putting a harsh on my mellow.

Draug that's all well and good, but when people flat out ignore Invictus' well stated truth in favor of crap that flat out won't work, I don't think its out of line for me to tell them they are being stupid.

At this point in the conversation, any solution that fails to address the posited necessity of removing the "winner takes all" system is just plain old stupid, and thus worthy of some gentle mockery.

The only way to break it is to replace the first-past-the-post framework with something else, like the alternative vote or proportional representation. But, Draugnar, that is even less personal than the current system, in which individual candidates usually run on their own kind of platforms with their own independent funding. In a multi-party system, you're apt to have more a party list whereby people in a large population area select a party and not a person, and the parties are awarded seats from the district according to their % of the vote (likely with some kind of minimum threshold).

@ Invictus

The UK has first-past-the-post. The Conservatives, Labour, The Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, the SNP, RESPECT, and the Green Party all have one or more MPs using this system, and that's ignoring the various parties in Northern Ireland. The Labour party went from virtually nothing to a major force within living memory. FPTP does not equal two eternal parties.

Octavious: Nobody said it did. But if a new party comes into power, an old one fades. Always. This is not coincidence.

I don't know anything about the UK system but I can virtually guarantee that any tier of their government with a FPTP system has only 2 large parties represented there. Do correct me if I'm wrong, please, and tell us how they do it differently than us, because it may go to the OP question of how we could change things.

@ Yellowjacket

Ok... look at the third party in the UK over past elections...

'83: 23 seats
'87: 22 seats
'92: 20 seats
'97: 46 seats
'01: 52 seats
'05: 62 seats
'10: 57 seats
'15: 01 seat

Third party there, being a major force, and growing slowly and steadily in a fptp system

what's the name of that party and what branch/house/etc. of government are they in?

Also, how many total seats are there?