Tuesday, 25 April 2017

What factors contribute to the maintenance of the two party system?

One thing
that we must not ignore is the voting system that we have in the United States.  Our use of the
"winner-take-all" system of elections that we use.

In many other
countries, a system called "proportional representation" is used.  This means that
parties are represented in a parliament in proportion to the percent of votes they receive in an
election.  In such a system, a party that won 25% of the vote, for example, would get about 25%
of the seats in the legislature.

In the US, a party that won 25% of the votes
in an election would likely get 0% of the representation (unless there were very odd
circumstances with a large number of candidates splitting the vote).  In such a system, third
parties will have a tremendously difficult time breaking up the two-party system.  Small parties
cannot win any seats until they are able to win a plurality in a given district.  This makes it
hard for "third parties" to get going and helps to maintain the two-party system that
we have.

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