But will it get off the ground??????

Support for brand-new, viable third party hits all-time high

The percentage of Americans who are so dissatisfied with two-party politics that they think a new, viable party is a good idea has risen to a record high 62%, according to a Gallup poll.

https://www.wnd.com/2021/02/support-bran...q_g802X6H8

---

You know trouble is right around the corner when your best friend tells you to hold his beer!!

Let people vote for all the candidates they like and we'll end up with as many parties as we want... And old useless parties will die.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Let people vote for all the candidates they like and we'll end up with as many parties as we want... And old useless parties will die.

While I'd like to see an end to the traditional two party system, I'm not comfortable with the possibility of a President elected with 20% of the vote.

---

When you get into the endzone, act like you've been there before.

But will it get off the ground??????

Support for brand-new, viable third party hits all-time high

The percentage of Americans who are so dissatisfied with two-party politics that they think a new, viable party is a good idea has risen to a record high 62%, according to a Gallup poll.

https://www.wnd.com/2021/02/support-bran...q_g802X6H8

The problem is that people complain about the two party system every election, but when it comes right down to it, those same people continue to vote Democrat or Republican. They think their vote won't matter if they vote for a small 3rd party that has no chance to win. They don't see that the more support a 3rd party gets in each election, the more relevant they become and the faster they become viable. It's not gonna happen overnight. It might take decades, but it will never happen if people who complain don't follow through.

---

Let people vote for all the candidates they like and we'll end up with as many parties as we want... And old useless parties will die.

While I'd like to see an end to the traditional two party system, I'm not comfortable with the possibility of a President elected with 20% of the vote.

It wouldn't be like that.

With approval voting, you could have 6 candidates, one gets 60% approval, one gets 50%, another gets 40%, etc., Because people are voting for everyone they like. 

With ranked choice voting, it's similar.  A candidate might get 20% of the first choice votes but then as candidates are eliminated, the second and third and fourth choice votes add up to much more than 20%.  Instant runoff voting is the simplest form of ranked choice.
But approval voting is best.

---

But will it get off the ground??????

Support for brand-new, viable third party hits all-time high

The percentage of Americans who are so dissatisfied with two-party politics that they think a new, viable party is a good idea has risen to a record high 62%, according to a Gallup poll.

https://www.wnd.com/2021/02/support-bran...q_g802X6H8

The problem is that people complain about the two party system every election, but when it comes right down to it, those same people continue to vote Democrat or Republican. They think their vote won't matter if they vote for a small 3rd party that has no chance to win. They don't see that the more support a 3rd party gets in each election, the more relevant they become and the faster they become viable. It's not gonna happen overnight. It might take decades, but it will never happen if people who complain don't follow through.

Third parties can't be viable at the presidential level because states are winner take all in the electoral college.

and if states start splitting their electoral vote, and third party candidates start earning electoral votes? What happens then? No one gets a majority of electoral votes. So the house of representatives decides.  Again, by state, winner take all, but one vote each.  Most likely one of the three candidates would already have a majority when you count this way, and there would be little room for deal making.  Unless there was already a third party with a lot of representation in the house, it would still be a two party system, and yes, the people who voted third party would be non-participants.

But if you do approval voting, and everyone is free to vote for all the candidates they like both for Congress and for president, you would see lots of new coalitions develop in both elections.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Ranked. Choice. Voting.

---

Ranked. Choice. Voting.

In the 2016 election, if everyone had ranked choice ballots, you probably still end up with Hillary and Trump as the last two candidates standing.

But if the 2016 election had used approval voting, you'd probably end up with Sanders v Rubio at the end.  

Ranked choice still rewards a jerk candidate who says things like "half your neighbors are bums and deadbeats." Approval voting helps find the candidate who pisses off the fewest people.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

When was the last time we had a successful 3rd party? 1860?

---

If social media can gather enough people to bankrupt a hedge fund with a short squeeze, I am thinking it can also conjure up enough voters to eventually make a viable 3rd party over time. Question is, will big tech allow such a thing?

---

I’m all for more parties *hic*.

---

When was the last time we had a successful 3rd party?  1860?

Not a place we want to go back to.
The Republican party was the "third" party in 1856.
Between 1856 and 1860, though, the Whigs died (the Constitutional Union party emerged from their remains) and the Democrats split in two. 
That left the Republicans as the strongest remaining party.
If a party is actually dying, a third party can replace it.
I don't think that will happen again anytime soon.
The national presidential primary process that our two parties have, is free advertising for them. It takes months and months and culminates in a convention. It'ss pretty much impossible for a new party to imitate.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Ranked. Choice. Voting.

Ranked choice still rewards a jerk candidate who says things like "half your neighbors are bums and deadbeats." 

That's fine we should reward candidates who tell the truth.

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

I was thinking we need to form a superpac that functions like a union for the people. Still kind of working out the details in my head, but it would be non-partisan, and it would only contribute to candidates that weren't getting their money from big pharma, tech, wall street, etc. Probably would have to start with just getting reps, but maybe you could gain enough influence to compete with the big wigs. You would need massive turnout to make it work, though.

---

Ranked choice still rewards a jerk candidate who says things like "half your neighbors are bums and deadbeats." 

That's fine we should reward candidates who tell the truth.

The other problem is, like I said, the two oldest parties probably get the most first-choice votes, and so your third party candidate is almost always eliminated in the first round of counting.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

When was the last time we had a successful 3rd party?  1860?

Not a place we want to go back to.
The Republican party was the "third" party in 1856.
Between 1856 and 1860, though, the Whigs died (the Constitutional Union party emerged from their remains) and the Democrats split in two. 
That left the Republicans as the strongest remaining party.
If a party is actually dying, a third party can replace it.
I don't think that will happen again anytime soon.
The national presidential primary process that our two parties have, is free advertising for them. It takes months and months and culminates in a convention. It'ss pretty much impossible for a new party to imitate.

I wouldn't mind killing the Democratic or Republican party, as long as we replaced it with something better. That shouldn't be too hard in either case.

---

Not a place we want to go back to.
The Republican party was the "third" party in 1856.
Between 1856 and 1860, though, the Whigs died (the Constitutional Union party emerged from their remains) and the Democrats split in two. 
That left the Republicans as the strongest remaining party.
If a party is actually dying, a third party can replace it.
I don't think that will happen again anytime soon.
The national presidential primary process that our two parties have, is free advertising for them. It takes months and months and culminates in a convention. It'ss pretty much impossible for a new party to imitate.

I wouldn't mind killing the Democratic or Republican party, as long as we replaced it with something better. That shouldn't be too hard in either case.

Yeah but the crisis that was serious enough to kill the Whigs and split the Democrats was the fugitive slave law plus bleeding Kansas. 
We don't want another crisis of that magnitude.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.