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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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On the national level, it's wasted. Essentially, the system used in the USA is called First Past The Post - the majority (or plurality) winner of the vote gets the office. No proportional representation. That means when there are two parties which are near clinching a majority (as in almost all national races here in the US), votes for a third party are wasted.
But isn't that a big problem? This way, you always have to vote for the least bad outcome. Because as far as I often read, both aren't that great. If everyone only votes for these two Partys, I would hardly actually call that a democratic choice, and you keep this Problem going and going this way. Nothing could ever change.
Yes, as a silent 3rd Party voter it's impossible to change anything. So you would need to have speak up. Speak about this problem. In my View, Americans are shooting in their own leg my hating everyone who is voting for something different.
Wouldn't it be better to have a third, or heck even a fourth party with seats?
In Germany, our Government even is always formed by two parties together. I think this is really good. This way, one single ideology doesn't have too much control over everything.
Yes.
It's made into an even bigger problem by the fact that the only third party candidates which consistently run for national office, the Libertarians and Greens, are both deeply unserious parties which focus most of their resources on making a ridiculous play for the presidency every four years instead of building up local support first.
Not all small parties that I see on the Wikipedia list even run in the elections? That's weird, makes it look like they aren't even trying. I think they should attend symbolic. Like "hey we are here. We exist" Just being on the Ballot also makes a difference.
But yes, as you say, building up local support should be the first step. My Party lost the seat in the European Parliament, but we actually had many local Elections at the same time, and local we actually won new seats in some City Councils. I hope the people that got that seat will keep up good work and also speak about it, because most people don't even notice anything that happens in their own Councils. That way, we maybe get more votes from people out of that city in bigger elections.
candidates have to get on the ballot in a seperate process for every state. It was actually a big thing this year as a snafu with biden on the ohio ballot https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/columbus/why-joe-biden-could-be-excluded-from-ohios-ballot-and-what-is-to-come/. And not voting for the lesser of the two evils can let the greater evil win. bush and trump both lost the popular vote but got in and bush famously got in due to a court decision about hanging chads in florida. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting . So yes a few american not votes gave us the iraq war.
Most of them don't. Many of them that do run are only state-level parties, not national. Third parties are very splintered in this country, other than the Libertarians and Greens, who, like I said, aren't very serious. Only 4 out of 47 seats in my state, for example, were contested by the Libertarians and Greens.