The Myth of the Third Party Solution

[TaraJo]

It would also require that people vote for them..even if they might -gasp- lose. So long as the fear of some other party gaining ground is a primary motivator any election system that can be gamed will be gamed to avoid it.

That's true, but in this situation, we'd have several different groups pop up, each one focusing on a different political perspective. So, let's say we have 6 parties, 6 candidates and you get an election where the 'winner' gets just 20% of the vote. As much as I'm not crazy about the idea of us voting against a candidate instead of voting for a candidate, I'm even less fond of someone winning the election when 80% of the population wanted someone else to win and that's where the run off comes in. If you want to vote Green Party, or if you want to vote for a labor party or if you want to vote for a libertaria party, you can do that. But nobody wins that first round without at least 51% of the vote. Second time around, yeah, you do kinda have to bite the bullet and vote for someone you may not be too fond of in the name of preventing an even worse person from winning. That's kinda how politics goes sometimes: choosing the lesser of two evils. But this would eliminate the spoiler effect that currently comes from third parties while still allowing them to participate in the election fairly, it would encourage candidates to promote themselves instead of negative attack adds against their opponent, it would encourage candidates to set themselves apart from the pack in a positive way and appeal to voters that are often ignored. The only addition I might throw in would be an alternative vote, but two candidate run off would be a good place to start, so I want to see us start there.