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Originally posted by Cupid
I always found the two party thing a little odd, because it's such a broad thing to be a democrat or republican.
There must be so many different fractions within each.
People can run on independent though right? But I doubt they'd even be noticed?
I wonder what it'd be like if there were multiple major parties. Sometimes it seems like politicians are being held back by the label of their respective party.
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First, I should say that our election system (a form of first-past-the-post) heavily favors two parties. A candidate must have more than half of the total number of electors in the Electoral College (whom are essentially who we're voting for in the election, and they are the ones who actually vote on the President- they aren't obliged to vote for who their state did, but in most cases there are repercussions for not doing so). If this doesn't happen, it goes to the House of Representatives, who choose the President out of the top three finishers.
The two major parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, hold most elected office. As a result of this and corporate donations and etc., these two parties have been able to hold the most power for 150 years.
We have smaller parties like the Libertarian and Green parties, but they never have a chance because of how little funding they get. They mainly exist to influence the Republican and Democrat parties respectively.
The Tea Party movement isn't a party but rather a subsection of the Republicans. They are the furthest to the right. An example of a a Tea Party Republican would be Cruz. They have shifted the Republican party extremely far to the right.
Independents can run, but will not likely be noticed (same problem with third party candidates as well). This is why Bernie is running as a Democrat. That, and his views generally align with the Democrats.
Smaller parties and independents can hold local office or even seats in Congress. However, they will rarely have a chance in state races (basically never in larger states) and will never win a Presidential election under the current system.
I agree that the US needs more major political parties. A different voting system (like instant runoff) would help a lot.
