Some obstacles that third parties face include voters believing that their vote for a third party candidate is a waste, since that candidate is unlikely to win. Also, third parties usually focus on a single personality or a single issue and that can lead to less popularity among voters. However, the most significant obstacle a third party faces is the winner-take-all system, where in the majority of states, the presidential candidate gets all the state’s electoral votes with the highest percentage of votes. This basically takes all the chances of a third party wining a presidential election.
The electoral college is unfair to the third party because they don’t get votes from the electoral college. Based on the presidential election from 1980 and 1992, it have show that the third party don’t get electoral vote(Doc B). The third party have a disadvantage which make it impossible for the third party to win the election because of the “winner take it all” system. According to George Will, he say that it discriminate smaller party and only help the main two parties(Doc E). The electoral college supports a two party system, discourages third party, and thereby restrict choices available to the
Watching this year’s election was shocking. Against all predictions, against every analysis, Donald Trump became the president-elect of the United States. But were those predictions really off? As the LA Times put it,” Hillary Clinton got roughly the same number of votes that President Obama received four years ago en route to his reelection, but she nonetheless lost the presidency to Donald Trump, who came in at least 2.8 million votes behind her.” This is, of course, because of the electoral college.
In the 1992 presidential election the candidate that got the most swing state votes also won the election; out of 17 swing states for that year Clinton, the winner, won 11 of them. For every rule there is an exception and the 1996 presidential election is just that. President Clinton ended up winning the election over all; however his opponent won in the swing states. Clinton was only able to win his second term because he won 31 out of 50 states over all. During the following national election, 2000, Bush won the swing states by 72,949 votes.
The citizen would be voting for who they want instead of what others want which in the end is right. Another reason is the third party candidate can be a better option compared to the running candidates of the two main parties. If the two main parties don't believe in the same policies then the citizen will have a third option. For example in the current debate the two main parties have candidates that the people disagree with yet they still support them because of the two party system.
Bush v. Gore The presidential election that took place on November 7, 2000, was so close that no one knew for more than a month who had won the election of 2000 the Governor of Texas George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore. By the end of the night, Bush had won 246 electoral votes Gore had won 260. The number of electoral votes needed to win the election is 270. Florida had twenty five electoral votes that were needed to win the election.
If there was three parties, and one of the parties won the election by a slight ⅓ vote, it would not be a majority of the people. Therefore the country would turn from a democratic republic to a whole different, less inviting arrangement. For example, In Australia, they are run by a Multi-Party system. The Australian Labor Party won with 35% of the popular vote. In Two-Party systems, it needs to be 51%.
Is there a way to predict the country’s achievement in the next few years by looking at how political parties have succeeded in the past? My studies use data from 1948 to show the association between the political party in power and their effects on improving the country’s economy. I decided that, a good, practical way of measuring a country’s economy improvement is by observing how employment rate and inflation is affected over time. In this study, I took a closer look at how these two factors are affected by the most important political representatives. These political representatives being; highest national ranked (president) and the highest at state level (governors).
Political parties greatly influence and affect how Americans vote. Political parties are essentially the main source of support for elected officials. The parties are who choose the leaders that they want to represent them and support these leaders in the elections. This alone is a big affect parties have had on how Americans vote. Delegates are no longer sent to the electoral college because they represent the people, but because they represent the parties.
The significant election of 2000 with George W. Bush and Al Gore made a huge impact. With the close statistics of the race, there are various polls taken that suggest whether Bush or Gore should have won. Others may believe that the difference in votes throughout different groups may have had an effect on the numbers. Statistics show that Al Gore’s popular vote was 48.38%, while Bush’s was 47.87%.
Effectiveness of Third Party Candidates Arguably it is said that the most powerful and important position of power is the leader of the free world. Initially, the race to become the President of the United States is merely deemed to be between the two major party candidates, the Democrats and the Republicans, but many individuals forget the power of the third party. Throughout history there has been a variety of presidential elections which have resulted in very slim margins. These close margins can mostly be attributed to the influence of third party candidates (Abramson 349).
The Third Party presidential candidates are often overlooked, or not taken seriously. After careful consideration, and acquainting myself with the many different Third Party candidates, it would be my choice to elect Dr. Jilll Stein. Her strong stand on environmental issues coincides with my concerns and beliefs when it comes to green energy and conservation. According to her campaign website, she is also a supporter of plans that would provide jobs, basic living necessities in an attempt to end poverty, healthcare, free education, equality for all, and a cut in military spending (Jill2016.com). Jill Stein’s vision may seem far-fetched but I believe that it is this kind of innovative, and optimistic plan that would be the most beneficial to
Third parties key roles is to despite their lack of success in the polls, they can always affect American politics in several different ways like: introducing new ideas by proposing new government policies and ideas, putting issues on the agenda by forcing major parties to address devising problems and keeping the major parties
During the start of our world the framers of the Constitution despised the thought of their being political parties, many thought of political parties as being illegitimate they were unanimously against them and the emergence of the third parties in and their impact on politics in America was a strong one. The thought of having no parties didn’t last long and the very first third party came forward, the Anti-Masons. The Anti-Masons appeared in 1828 under the lead of Clay Whig after the disappearance of William Morgan. This third party was highly opposed to Free Masonry because back then you couldn’t become anything or move forward in society unless you were a Free Mason; this was near impossible considering that there was favoritism in that
I think that political parties are not very good at organizing the political interests of citizens. They create party platforms that seek to inform voters in hopes that they will agree with that party's positions on issues. However, parties can change their positions about major issues or have unclear positions. If a party has certain positions on different issues that few people agree with than they would not have as much support from voters. Political parties can increase their voter turnout by being more responsive in order to engage citizens.
