In their most recent general election the 3rd parties of Britain and America experienced significantly different outcomes. While the Liberal Democrats are now in a coalition the American Libertarian party received 0.99% of the popular vote. The clear failure of 3rd parties to break the monopoly of power held by the Democrats and Republicans can be explained by the electoral system, costs involved and influence of the media.…
Completion of an independent third party examination and assessment of the appropriateness of Senator Duffy’s travel and living allowance expense claims from April 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012, more specifically:…
Why does the United States only have two principal political parties? What role can 3rd parties play?…
• What is a third party and what role do they have in American government?…
While most of the country was tied up with the competition going on during the 2012 Presidential Election between the Democrat and Republican Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, many other Americans were rooting for the underdogs. The gap between Romney and Obama in the popular vote was more significant than you'd think. Growing support for third party candidates don't have the major political parties worried, but evidence shows that they should think about gearing up for competition in future Presidential elections. With Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party 2012 Presidential candidate, ahead in the national popular vote amongst the third parties and the Green Party holding the majority of offices as compared to other third parties, the mainstream parties may have to begin gearing up against growing and very real additional competition.…
debates have occurred regularly and are becoming institutionalized as a practice in American elections. Third-party candidates have fewer chances to join presidential debates, especially if the two major party candidates do not agree to debate them. Unless it becomes in the interest of both parties to have a third-party candidate debate, as it was in 1992 with Ross Perot, it will be very difficult for third-party candidates to become a part of the presidential debates. Even though third parties have debated each other in presidential election years, the fate of third parties in receiving national coverage or joining the two major party candidates in presidential debates is uncertain. It is also unclear how much effect debates have on American…
Even though Third party candidates haven't had any success in the past when entering polls they still effect American Politics in a very enormous way. Some of the ways they can effect the presidential election are, they can introduce new ideas, put issues on the agenda, spoil the election and keep the major parties honest. If you think about it Ralph Nader helped George W Bush a lot in the 2000 presidential election by taking a lot of the left-leaning votes away from Al Gore. If he hadn't of ran Al Gore could have got the votes that went towards Nader. Therefore that could've cause Al Gore to win instead of George W. Bush.…
What's the difference between the first political parties and which would a small tobacco farmer chose to follow? The first party is the democratic republicans which are lead by Jefferson. This side was favored by the south and west and the most common people who joined this side were small farmers, skilled workers, shopkeepers, and frontiersmen. Farmers thought they were most important to citizens.…
He says that the extremes of the two-party system are becoming more moderate, so they are learning to work with each other and compromise. Noonan, a third-party supporter, says the opposite, that the two parties are so polarized as well as the citizens of the United States. Lizza would add that third-parties bring unvoiced issues to the table that is necessary to balance opinion. If Brooks is right, the other two opinions seem less convincing, but they are not insignificant. Personally, I would agree with Noonan that society and government is becoming extremely polarized. However, I don’t think a third-party is the remedy for the stark differences in opinion. Third parties, as Lizza said, do bring some controversial topics to the table, but, again, I don’t think this is enough to reform the strong partisanship in America. Brooks’s thought that the centrist ideology is calming the storm is the only hope we can…
In the 2000 election, Al Gore and Ralph Nader split the left wing vote. (Document 5). While Nader only won 3% of the popular vote, the election was so close that 3% more of the popular vote would have put Gore in office. (Document 5). This also happened in the 1912 election, when the Republicans split the vote between the incumbent Roosevelt, and Taft, allowing Wilson to win. The voters know that this will always be the result, so they do not vote for the party that their beliefs align with the closest. Instead, they vote Republican or Democrat to actually have a chance of winning the election. Third party candidates cannot win not only because of our two-party system, but because of our winner-take-all system. If two candidates split the liberal vote, the conservative party will win all the votes in that state. If this trend continues, the conservative party will win the entire election. (Document 6). If the United States based elections on the popular vote instead of the Electoral College, then people would be more likely to vote with the party they agree with most, not the party that is more likely to win. This would make citizens actually want to vote because they have more options and they would feel like their vote actually…
Jonathan Safran Foer once quoted “I see myself as someone who makes things. Definitions have never done anything but constrain”. This quote carries weight among not only among communities but also the younger generations as new definitions are constantly being changed. As a definition changes, it can open new doors for interpretations as well as close doors for creation among a generation that thrives to make a change. One particular example of this is the word libertarian, a word that may need calling upon to change its definition from the one it was given over fifty years ago.…
The favorable side is portrayed in Emma Roller article which explains how major party candidates should listen and tried to appeal to protest voters. That a majority of third party voters do not follow the same party lines as once did their parents. Since protest voters are still voters or would be voters who still have a voice that needs to be heard. The unfavorable side is portrayed in Matthew Levinger article where he tells his readers to just go to a candidate that has views more in line with your personal values since third party candidates are less likely to win and that it could be worse if a person does not vote or votes for the wrong candidate. Both articles have fair points, but I believed all votes matter and count as long as they are cast. Even if someone does not vote that is signaling that there is a problem that needs to be fixed to earn the vote. “Protest voting” is not a waste of an opportunity to exercise the American democratic right to vote. Regardless of the outcome of the election, the third party is not going away and candidates and voters alike would be best to listen to what they have to say as one day we may see the presidential race will become a…
a third party is any party that is not democratic or republican. their obstacles are lack of funds, recognition, getting their name on the ballot and spreading their message.…
The emergence of the second party system in the United States is a dynamic piece of our political history. This term was used as a way of stating the political party systems during the time period of the early/middle 1800’s. Due to separate views and rapidly rising voting interest, this is where the United States ultimately split into the Democratic and Whig Party. Although both parties were still growing at the time, both devised many major philosophies and had very important political figures as their leader.…
Minority party candidates, such as Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party in the 2016 election, do not stand of chance of getting elected because the majority of people support one of the two party candidates. There is also a risk of faithless electors changing the outcome of an election. There have only been a handful of faithless electors in the past hundred years. (“The Electoral College.”). The majority of them being cases where the elector wanted to send a message or just vote for their candidate because it would not affect the outcome of the election. There is a fear that if a movement was led then these faithless electors could change the outcome on an election. The Electoral College system also pays a role in depressing voter turnout. Since each state is guaranteed a certain number of electoral votes regardless of the voter turnout, there is not much encouragement for the state to look into increasing its voter…