By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Politics Discussion - What would be the best option to get more parties involved/elected in the USA?

thranx on 20 September 2012

I am definatly not a fan of proportional representation.

I think the best option is to vote third party. people need to stop feeling like its throwing a vote away, its not. Perhaps somebody can start a 3rd party awareness campaign whose goal is to help fund 3rd parties and promote them. Its an idea i have been tossing around in my head. America has always been a two party system but we have had changes in parties before so it can happen again. My thoughts were maybe o a central webpage that would only discuss third parties and not even mention democrats or repubs. Not sure how well it would work. But even a vote any 3rd party campaign would be good. They can just run ads that attack dems and repubs and suggest vote any third party.



Around the Network
Mr Khan on 20 September 2012

Change it to a runoff or proportional representation system.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Mr Khan on 20 September 2012
thranx said:
I am definatly not a fan of proportional representation.

I think the best option is to vote third party. people need to stop feeling like its throwing a vote away, its not. Perhaps somebody can start a 3rd party awareness campaign whose goal is to help fund 3rd parties and promote them. Its an idea i have been tossing around in my head. America has always been a two party system but we have had changes in parties before so it can happen again. My thoughts were maybe o a central webpage that would only discuss third parties and not even mention democrats or repubs. Not sure how well it would work. But even a vote any 3rd party campaign would be good. They can just run ads that attack dems and repubs and suggest vote any third party.

Two conditions have to be met for third party voting to not be throwing away your vote:

1: the third party has to be able to capture at least 1/3rd vote share

2: that 1/3rd has to be drawn more or less evenly from both sides.

Otherwise it will be throwing away your vote. Every time. Or (at best) the third party absorbs one of the big two, like how the Republicans rose to power on the graves of the Whigs.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

SlayerRondo on 20 September 2012

Libertarians i believe would be the best party to give another option for american's.



This is the Game of Thrones

Where you either win

or you DIE

Adinnieken on 20 September 2012
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
kain_kusanagi said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
"I believe that we need to go from a winner takes all election process to proportional representation."

Nailed it. An opinion supported by 5% of the population deserves 5% influence, not zero.

 

The United States is not a democracy, we are a republic.  We may be a democratic nation, but we are not a democracy and we never were nor did the founding fathers ever intend for the United States to be a democracy.



Around the Network
Adinnieken on 20 September 2012
thranx said:
I am definatly not a fan of proportional representation.

I think the best option is to vote third party. people need to stop feeling like its throwing a vote away, its not. Perhaps somebody can start a 3rd party awareness campaign whose goal is to help fund 3rd parties and promote them. Its an idea i have been tossing around in my head. America has always been a two party system but we have had changes in parties before so it can happen again. My thoughts were maybe o a central webpage that would only discuss third parties and not even mention democrats or repubs. Not sure how well it would work. But even a vote any 3rd party campaign would be good. They can just run ads that attack dems and repubs and suggest vote any third party.

I agree with this fully.  If you want change, get involved in the political system and create change.  Educate people on what you feel the issues are and how you believe they can or should be solved, but don't change what has worked for more than 200 years because of a situation that honestly has only started to happen within the past 10 -20 years.

As someone who has worked on a campaign before and understands the importance of it, get involved rather than bitching and moaning about it.



the2real4mafol on 21 September 2012
Adinnieken said:
the2real4mafol said:

 

You need a proportional system like the greek system, which has a 300 seat house, 250 of which are elected and the other 50 are awarded to the leading party, in a hope to avoid to coalitions (even though the US system acts like a coalition anyway)

In this system, a party needs at least 3% to get a seat in parliament. Need 151 for a majority. To decide, the number of seats for each party, they divide the 250 by the total percentage of votes for each party. I wish, a system like this existed in Britain.

As you can see 7 parties got seats

Official parties

    New Democracy (ND) 129

    Syriza Unionist Social Front (SYRIZA) 71

    Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) 33

    Independent Greeks (ANEL) 20

    Golden Dawn (this is the nazi pary of greece!) (XA) 18            

    Democratic Left (DIMAR)   17

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) 14

 


And thus my point is proved!  Such a system of government absolutely, positively, without any question of doubt does not work!  Talk about a country that is so fucked up right now politically as well as financially, and you have one solid bit of evidence as to why.  Rule by committee doesn't work.  Anyone who has worked in the corporate world at a business level (not a your local McDonald's franchise or Seven Eleven) can speak of the woe that is "rule by committee".  When everyone has a voice and no one can agree enough to make a reasonably intelligent decision, so no one does anything or they do the wrong thing for all the wrong reasons. 

There is nothing like being in a committee, needing consensus to move forward and having one idiot in a corner spouting off random bullshit that has no relevance to the actual issue but demanding it be acknowledged and acted upon in order for consensus.  And that is exactly what you'd have in a such a system of government.

That's not why they are fucked up, they are fucked up because of there mismanagement  of their budget. And i'm sure their political system is no more of a deadlock than the USA's. If the coalition can agree on things, much can be done. I guess Greece was a bad example. Their is a similiar political system in the Northern Irish Assembly (a region split between unionists and nationalists, Protestants and Catholics), which was so sucessful it ended the Northern Irish troubles, as everyone got represented. Look it up, if you want to find how it works



Xbox One, PS4 and Switch (+ Many Retro Consoles)

'When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the people's stick'- Mikhail Bakunin

Prediction: Switch will sell better than Wii U Lifetime Sales by Jan 1st 2018

the2real4mafol on 21 September 2012
thranx said:
I am definatly not a fan of proportional representation.

I think the best option is to vote third party. people need to stop feeling like its throwing a vote away, its not. Perhaps somebody can start a 3rd party awareness campaign whose goal is to help fund 3rd parties and promote them. Its an idea i have been tossing around in my head. America has always been a two party system but we have had changes in parties before so it can happen again. My thoughts were maybe o a central webpage that would only discuss third parties and not even mention democrats or repubs. Not sure how well it would work. But even a vote any 3rd party campaign would be good. They can just run ads that attack dems and repubs and suggest vote any third party.

Even though I support proportional representation, I agree with you on the rest of your post. If people had enough of the two main parties, just vote elsewhere. You will get your way eventually, with enough awareness of the other parties and just getting votes from people.



Xbox One, PS4 and Switch (+ Many Retro Consoles)

'When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the people's stick'- Mikhail Bakunin

Prediction: Switch will sell better than Wii U Lifetime Sales by Jan 1st 2018

Kynes on 21 September 2012
Adinnieken said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
kain_kusanagi said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
"I believe that we need to go from a winner takes all election process to proportional representation."

Nailed it. An opinion supported by 5% of the population deserves 5% influence, not zero.

 

The United States is not a democracy, we are a republic.  We may be a democratic nation, but we are not a democracy and we never were nor did the founding fathers ever intend for the United States to be a democracy.


You can be a republic and a democracy at the same time. What you can't be is a monarchy and a republic at the same time.



Kasz216 on 21 September 2012

All people would need to do is repeal a shitload of the election "regulations" that were passed by the two dominant parties to make sure that there were only two.

While we always had 2 main parties, there used to quite a few popular 3rd parties.


Another good one would be to go back to the State governments electing senators. As state legislators are much more likely to be third party members.