Down With the Two Party System

[The Liberated Territories]

Easy. Cut all the government funding given to the parties.

They'll just require even more money from special interest groups. There's the possibility that could make things worse.

Like wasting tax payers money funding a party they oppose?

[The Flood]

A king is NOT a dictator. A dictator is an absolutist head of a republic. A republic is a nation without a monarch, a dictator cannot be a king, and a king cannot be a dictator. Though an absolute monarch is similar in function to a dictator, it's not the same thing.

Benito Mussolini.

Mussolini was not a king, though Italy was a kingdom at the time, he was not the king.

[Dracoria]

They'll just require even more money from special interest groups. There's the possibility that could make things worse.

Like wasting tax payers money funding a party they oppose?

This may surprise you, but people in modern democracies frequently pay taxes for things they oppose. As far as I'm aware, there's no opt-out for most of those. Military, welfare, food stamps, public construction, handouts to companies, the other political party.

Thing is, forcing the political parties to rely more heavily on corporate sponsors could give those sponsors even more sway. This is something people on the left would absolutely froth about, which almost makes me support it. Not quite though.

[Dracoria]

They'll just require even more money from special interest groups. There's the possibility that could make things worse.

Not when you remove parties from the from the system all together. I am really getting excited about the possibility of a non-partisan system, those here that have read about it seem to like it. I have rarely seen this on internet forums, people agreeing rather than just the typical back and forth.

How would you remove political parties entirely? Banning them would mean gutting a section of the First Amendment.

[The Flood]

As a hater of both political parties in my United States, due to my beliefs as a social conservative and economically liberal person, (also as a Christian), I disagree with 50% of everything each party says. My social beliefs are probably contrary to about 85% of you, seeing as most of you aren't necessarily religious. My economic policies, especially on welfare and education will be agreeable to about 90%. But anyways, I hate the idea of two political parties, with similar plans (control political power), ruling our system. So lets decrease the power of the GOP, and whatever the Democrats are backed on. Screw the political "campaign donations", they are merely bribes in disguise, and as a strong believer in this http://www.openbible.info/topics/bribes I really hate that. Make elections unable to be influenced by the financial elite, instead let the people decide, and we shall have a society acceptable to God and man. What say you, my fellow agnostics, atheists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims? Agree, disagree, and why?

We're quite alike, it seems. I am also a social conservative, economic leftist Christian. And I have no idea how to vote, because like you, I disagree with 50% of what every party says, even the parties of my native Canada.

[The Liberated Territories]

Like wasting tax payers money funding a party they oppose?

This may surprise you, but people in modern democracies frequently pay taxes for things they oppose. As far as I'm aware, there's no opt-out for most of those. Military, welfare, food stamps, public construction, handouts to companies, the other political party.

Thing is, forcing the political parties to rely more heavily on corporate sponsors could give those sponsors even more sway. This is something people on the left would absolutely froth about, which almost makes me support it. Not quite though.

No shit. Whatever happened to not imposing your morality on others? I guess we make an exception with taxes or "the general welfare."

Then we reform the system to abolish private parties, interest groups, and whatever else.

[Dracoria]

This may surprise you, but people in modern democracies frequently pay taxes for things they oppose. As far as I'm aware, there's no opt-out for most of those. Military, welfare, food stamps, public construction, handouts to companies, the other political party.

Thing is, forcing the political parties to rely more heavily on corporate sponsors could give those sponsors even more sway. This is something people on the left would absolutely froth about, which almost makes me support it. Not quite though.

No shit. Whatever happened to not imposing your morality on others? I guess we make an exception with taxes or "the general welfare."

Then we reform the system to abolish private parties, interest groups, and whatever else.

I hope you mean public parties, because private parties are where the fun stuff happens.

[Javaking]

Benito Mussolini.

Mussolini was not a king, though Italy was a kingdom at the time, he was not the king.

a dictatorship simply means a country where one or a few people hold all the power. If he calls himself president, king or the great spagettii monster does not matter. You have many different dictatorships raging from one man dictatorships like N.korea, total dictatorships where near all freedome is taken like burma or autoterian dictatorships where people have freedome to say and act as they want, but little or no influense over the political ruling of the contrie. The soviet was a part of this group. Funny enough we even have elective dictatorships in the papacy or the german/italian holy roman empire

[Novus America]

Not when you remove parties from the from the system all together. I am really getting excited about the possibility of a non-partisan system, those here that have read about it seem to like it. I have rarely seen this on internet forums, people agreeing rather than just the typical back and forth.

How would you remove political parties entirely? Banning them would mean gutting a section of the First Amendment.

I do NOT propose banning parties, a ban would violate the freedom of assembly.

It goes like this.

What we need is a truly non-partisan political system. This is not only the best option, it is also the only realistic option. To do this we do not need any Constitutional Amendments, just a change in election laws and legislative procedure. We already have non-partisan elections (some Judges for example).
We just need to take the following steps.
1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

By doing the above you can weaken the parties, which is the ultimate solution. We do not need parties anymore.

Independents are the largest and fastest growing political group in the US. Independents are the future. And independents, unlike 3rd party candidates actually win elections.”

Note the Nebraska legislature has ALREADY implemented many of these ideas. It can work, it does work.

[The Liberated Territories]

Not when you remove parties from the from the system all together. I am really getting excited about the possibility of a non-partisan system, those here that have read about it seem to like it. I have rarely seen this on internet forums, people agreeing rather than just the typical back and forth.

How would you remove political parties entirely? Banning them would mean gutting a section of the First Amendment.

You can have no parties (at least with power to control the government). And no it wouldn't. No ban is needed.

My proposal for "democracy reform" is apply demarchy (aka sortition) to some levels of government. Pure sortition would utterly eliminate the need for political parties, since the whole process will favor random selection.

[Dracoria]

How would you remove political parties entirely? Banning them would mean gutting a section of the First Amendment.

You can have no parties (at least with power to control the government). And no it wouldn't. No ban is needed.

My proposal for "democracy reform" is apply demarchy (aka sortition) to some levels of government. Pure sortition would utterly eliminate the need for political parties, since the whole process will favor random selection.

If you do not ban them, what is to prevent people from caucusing together, sharing funding and supporting eachother due to similar opinions on how to govern the country? And then, perhaps, putting a name on that alliance? And of course, as it grows, set up an internal leadership?

[Dracoria]

How would you remove political parties entirely? Banning them would mean gutting a section of the First Amendment.

I do NOT propose banning parties, a ban would violate the freedom of assembly.

It goes like this.

What we need is a truly non-partisan political system. This is not only the best option, it is also the only realistic option. To do this we do not need any Constitutional Amendments, just a change in election laws and legislative procedure. We already have non-partisan elections (some Judges for example).
We just need to take the following steps.
1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

By doing the above you can weaken the parties, which is the ultimate solution. We do not need parties anymore.

Independents are the largest and fastest growing political group in the US. Independents are the future. And independents, unlike 3rd party candidates actually win elections.”

Note the Nebraska legislature has ALREADY implemented many of these ideas. It can work, it does work.

If you remove party designators from the ballots and have people look them up on their phone, what makes you think they'll sit in the booth looking up each person's positions rather than looking up who's in their preferred party? Probably a lot faster to do it the latter way.

The 'Jungle' primaries allow for spoilers still, just that they're from the same party instead of third parties. Great way to let, say, the single Republican running against three Democrats, win with 30 or 40 percent of the vote. The runoff system isn't a bad idea, but it could probably just be tossed into the existing system to raise the chances of third parties.

As for removing government funding, that won't work the way you think. Parties will seek other, corporate sponsors; independents will either need to be rich or seek sponsors as well, or most likely, both.

Removing the positions of minority and majority leader, whips and such? I wasn't aware they were paid any differently than other legislators. Even without recognition and support, the parties would continue to monitor and organize their own; heck, they may just use their smartphones to keep in touch while sitting in their designated seats.

[Meridiani Planum]

Sweden is the exception rather than the rule.

How do I know that? What is your threshold for the workability of such a voting system? Which nations fall on which side of the threshold?

Why would we adopt a system that often does not work?

How often doesn't it work? And what does that have to do with America? Perhaps we can learn from other nations' mistakes.

I would rather have the American system compared to many if not most European countries which suffer from constantly shifting, unstable governments and extremist parties gaining excessive influence by playing king-maker.

I would rather have a more nurturing environment for alternative political ideas than to have a permanent oligarchical establishment and voters who pressure others by bitching about how they are "throwing away their vote".

But again, your idea would require a Constitutional Amendment that is too controversial to ever pass.

Constitutional Amendments have passed before. I realize that it is a big challenge, and might never happen. However, that doesn't prevent me from seeing this as a potentially good idea to promote.

Even if it was a good idea your idea is completely unrealistic. America is not Sweden. And Sweden while it has many good things, is hardly perfect, it has plenty of problems as well.

I realize that America is not Sweden and that Sweden is not perfect. That's hardly the point. Proportional representation could work better in America than it does in Sweden. There's no a priori reason why it can't.

I already explained in great details the workings of a non-partisan systems which makes me wonder why I bother. Many people just drop a quick sentence without actually doing any reading or analysis. But I will copy pasta for your convenience since you obviously did not read anything I wrote.

I haven't seen those posts of yours. Why should I have? Do you think I spend all my time here? Please spare me the appeal to pity.

1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

Points (3) and (4) are completely unrealistic. Just try to prohibit parties from getting governmental support at the Federal level. That will make a Constitutional Amendment seem easy to achieve in comparison.

Point (2) is okay, but I'd much rather have approval or range voting than IRV, which is more susceptible to tactical voting strategies. Point (1) will just cause voters to look for buzz words such as "conservative" and "liberal" as stand-ins for Republican and Democrat.

[Chestaan]

This may surprise you, but people in modern democracies frequently pay taxes for things they oppose. As far as I'm aware, there's no opt-out for most of those. Military, welfare, food stamps, public construction, handouts to companies, the other political party.

Thing is, forcing the political parties to rely more heavily on corporate sponsors could give those sponsors even more sway. This is something people on the left would absolutely froth about, which almost makes me support it. Not quite though.

No shit. Whatever happened to not imposing your morality on others? I guess we make an exception with taxes or "the general welfare."

Then we reform the system to abolish private parties, interest groups, and whatever else.

And murder, and theft, and rape etc. We impose our moral values on others all the time.

[Novus America]

I do NOT propose banning parties, a ban would violate the freedom of assembly.

It goes like this.

What we need is a truly non-partisan political system. This is not only the best option, it is also the only realistic option. To do this we do not need any Constitutional Amendments, just a change in election laws and legislative procedure. We already have non-partisan elections (some Judges for example).
We just need to take the following steps.
1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

By doing the above you can weaken the parties, which is the ultimate solution. We do not need parties anymore.

Independents are the largest and fastest growing political group in the US. Independents are the future. And independents, unlike 3rd party candidates actually win elections.”

Note the Nebraska legislature has ALREADY implemented many of these ideas. It can work, it does work.

If you remove party designators from the ballots and have people look them up on their phone, what makes you think they'll sit in the booth looking up each person's positions rather than looking up who's in their preferred party? Probably a lot faster to do it the latter way.

The 'Jungle' primaries allow for spoilers still, just that they're from the same party instead of third parties. Great way to let, say, the single Republican running against three Democrats, win with 30 or 40 percent of the vote. The runoff system isn't a bad idea, but it could probably just be tossed into the existing system to raise the chances of third parties.

As for removing government funding, that won't work the way you think. Parties will seek other, corporate sponsors; independents will either need to be rich or seek sponsors as well, or most likely, both.

Removing the positions of minority and majority leader, whips and such? I wasn't aware they were paid any differently than other legislators. Even without recognition and support, the parties would continue to monitor and organize their own; heck, they may just use their smartphones to keep in touch while sitting in their designated seats.

Majority leader and minority leader are paid more. I think we can agree this is grossly wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_o ... s_Congress

Moreover they have excessive procedural powers. Harry Reid has used his powers to shut down the senate. By removing their powers you would have a chance of getting things moving again.

The Jungle Primary only works with the run-off. And you need the Jungle primary to have a run off, how else can you fairly determine the biggest vote getter?

I never said my ideas were perfect, obviously the parties would still make trouble. I simply posit my system is much better than the current system. There never is a silver bullet, nothing is perfect. But these ideas would weakens the parties greatly. Especially since it would be almost impossible to keep people form breaking ranks, with parties removed from the formal governing process there would be little holding the parties together, especially as the parties do not have a monolithic ideology, they are big tent parties. Their is no honor amongst thieves, so they would have a hard time holding together.
Most Americans hate both parties. Make it easy for independents, and independents will win more.

And we seem to be in agreement on replacing first past the post with a run-off. So that is progress.

And you have raised points that show my ideas are not perfect, but I never said they were perfect. I think we can agree my system is better than our current one.

And this systems is empirically proven. It does make parties weaker.

[Pope Joan]

How would you remove political parties entirely? Banning them would mean gutting a section of the First Amendment.

I do NOT propose banning parties, a ban would violate the freedom of assembly.

It goes like this.

What we need is a truly non-partisan political system. This is not only the best option, it is also the only realistic option. To do this we do not need any Constitutional Amendments, just a change in election laws and legislative procedure. We already have non-partisan elections (some Judges for example).
We just need to take the following steps.
1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

By doing the above you can weaken the parties, which is the ultimate solution. We do not need parties anymore.

Independents are the largest and fastest growing political group in the US. Independents are the future. And independents, unlike 3rd party candidates actually win elections.”

Note the Nebraska legislature has ALREADY implemented many of these ideas. It can work, it does work.

Forming cabals and secret societies seems to be part of our human nature. I think of the rise of the Know Nothings (American Party), and of unruly cliques such as the Kinderhook gang.

Parties may be overrated anyway; despite their huge registration edge, the Democrats are unable to win Massachusetts' state house.

However, who says the Democrats are a party? Will Rogers said, in answer to a question, "No, I do not belong to an organized political party. I happen to be a Democrat."

[Immoren]

I do NOT propose banning parties, a ban would violate the freedom of assembly.

It goes like this.

What we need is a truly non-partisan political system. This is not only the best option, it is also the only realistic option. To do this we do not need any Constitutional Amendments, just a change in election laws and legislative procedure. We already have non-partisan elections (some Judges for example).
We just need to take the following steps.
1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

By doing the above you can weaken the parties, which is the ultimate solution. We do not need parties anymore.

Independents are the largest and fastest growing political group in the US. Independents are the future. And independents, unlike 3rd party candidates actually win elections.”

Note the Nebraska legislature has ALREADY implemented many of these ideas. It can work, it does work.

Forming cabals and secret societies seems to be part of our human nature. I think of the rise of the Know Nothings (American Party), and of unruly cliques such as the Kinderhook gang.

Parties may be overrated anyway; despite their huge registration edge, the Democrats are unable to win Massachusetts' state house.

However, who says the Democrats are a party? Will Rogers said, in answer to a question, "No, I do not belong to an organized political party. I happen to be a Democrat."

"I am not a Democrat, but I am a democrat."

[The Liberated Territories]

You can have no parties (at least with power to control the government). And no it wouldn't. No ban is needed.

My proposal for "democracy reform" is apply demarchy (aka sortition) to some levels of government. Pure sortition would utterly eliminate the need for political parties, since the whole process will favor random selection.

If you do not ban them, what is to prevent people from caucusing together, sharing funding and supporting eachother due to similar opinions on how to govern the country? And then, perhaps, putting a name on that alliance? And of course, as it grows, set up an internal leadership?

Nothing. It's just redundant because in demarchy, the amount of petitions you make, the amount of money you put forward, etc. is meaningless in governing the country. There still is freedom of speech of disseminate information, etc. etc; but the system prevents lobbyists of all kinds from spoiling the system. So you could join "alliances" but in the end of things, it's useless. You don't know what "alliance" your next senator will belong to, and it's more likely most politicians won't join parties due to the redundancy.

[Novus America]

Sweden is the exception rather than the rule.

How do I know that? What is your threshold for the workability of such a voting system? Which nations fall on which side of the threshold?

Why would we adopt a system that often does not work?

How often doesn't it work? And what does that have to do with America? Perhaps we can learn from other nations' mistakes.

I would rather have the American system compared to many if not most European countries which suffer from constantly shifting, unstable governments and extremist parties gaining excessive influence by playing king-maker.

I would rather have a more nurturing environment for alternative political ideas than to have a permanent oligarchical establishment and voters who pressure others by bitching about how they are "throwing away their vote".

But again, your idea would require a Constitutional Amendment that is too controversial to ever pass.

Constitutional Amendments have passed before. I realize that it is a big challenge, and might never happen. However, that doesn't prevent me from seeing this as a potentially good idea to promote.

Even if it was a good idea your idea is completely unrealistic. America is not Sweden. And Sweden while it has many good things, is hardly perfect, it has plenty of problems as well.

I realize that America is not Sweden and that Sweden is not perfect. That's hardly the point. Proportional representation could work better in America than it does in Sweden. There's no a priori reason why it can't.

I already explained in great details the workings of a non-partisan systems which makes me wonder why I bother. Many people just drop a quick sentence without actually doing any reading or analysis. But I will copy pasta for your convenience since you obviously did not read anything I wrote.

I haven't seen those posts of yours. Why should I have? Do you think I spend all my time here? Please spare me the appeal to pity.

1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

Points (3) and (4) are completely unrealistic. Just try to prohibit parties from getting governmental support at the Federal level. That will make a Constitutional Amendment seem easy to achieve in comparison.

Point (2) is okay, but I'd much rather have approval or range voting than IRV, which is more susceptible to tactical voting strategies. Point (1) will just cause voters to look for buzz words such as "conservative" and "liberal" as stand-ins for Republican and Democrat.

Look at anywhere in South Eastern Europe. We even had a Norwegian here saying Proportional does not work there. For example in a 100 seat legislature, say the center-right party gets 48%, the center left 47%, and an extremist party 5%. The extremists now hold outsized power. This is happening all across Europe as we speak. Things are not going well in Europe. Extremist parties are gaining outsized power due to the system you propose. Europe suffers form grid-lock, extremist parties, unstable governments, and the economy is a mess. Corrupt parties control European politics just as much, if not much more, as corrupt parties control American politics.

You said you like proportional more than the oligarchical establishment, but proportional reinforces the oligarchic establishment. In a proportional system you are forced to pick a group of oligarchs. All parties are inherently oligarchic, corrupt, and undemocratic. The goal should not to be to empower parties, the goal should be to weaken them. More Americans are independent then are members of either party. Proportional voting hurts independents. So it is very anti-democratic in the US.

"In addition to the general issues already identified relating to PR systems, the following additional disadvantages may be considered:
◾Weak links between elected legislators and their constituents. When List PR is used, and particularly when seats are allocated in one single national district, as in Namibia or Israel, the system is criticized for destroying the link between voters and their representatives. Where lists are closed, voters have no opportunity to determine the identity of the persons who will represent them and no identifiable representative for their town, district or village, nor can they easily reject an individual representative if they feel that he or she has performed poorly in office or is not the kind of person they would want representing them – e.g., warlords in countries such as Bosnia or Afghanistan. Moreover, in some developing countries where the society is mainly rural, voters’ identification with their region of residence is sometimes considerably stronger than their identification with any political party or grouping. This criticism, however, may relate more to the distinction between systems in which voters vote for parties and systems in which they vote for candidates.
◾Excessive entrenchment of power within party headquarters and in the hands of senior party leaderships—especially in closed-list systems. A candidate’s position on the party list, and therefore his or her likelihood of success, is dependent on currying favour with party bosses, while their relationship with the electorate is of secondary importance. In an unusual twist to the List PR system, in Guyana parties publish their list of candidates not ranked but simply ordered alphabetically. This allows party leaders even more scope to reward loyalty and punish independence because seats are only allocated to individuals once the result of the vote is known.
◾The need for some kind of recognized party or political groupings to exist. This makes List PR particularly difficult to implement in those societies which do not have parties or have very embryonic and loose party structures, for example, many of the island countries of the Pacific. While technically possible to allow independent candidates to run under various forms of PR, it is difficult and introduces a number of additional complications, particularly as relates to wasted votes."

http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/ ... c/esd02c01

Also remember the United States is a federal, not unitary state. Yes Constitutional Amendments have passed, but they need broad support across the States, something proportional would never receive since it would weaken the States and give state powers to parties. Americans do not like our two big parties, but we doe not like our small parties either. Non-partisan is the only change that would be acceptable to the American public.

We at least agree on the run-off. So that is progress.

I agree my system is not perfect, but it is the only system that is proven to work in America, and that works with our Federal systems and our dislike of parties in general. All parties are deeply unpopular, so we might have a chance of getting it passed at the Federal level. If we could get a widespread non-partisan movement it could easily be more popular than the hated parties. The parties would be forced to accept something popular enough. Even dictatorships collapse if there is enough popular opposition. Our best option is more independents however. We already have two independent Senators, and independents beat the Democrats in several of the most recent elections. And it does not have to happen over night, as no Constitutional Amendment is is required, we can start with more states. Although we could use a Constitutional Amendment to require all governments to be non-partisan, that would be great, but I admit that would be very difficult.

The important thing is we can start now with a non-partisan system, first by replacing the first-past the post system with a jungle primary and a run-off. Few people seem to like FPTP. We already have in some elections, and we already have a few non-partisan legislatures. We just have to keep pushing. With independents becoming more popular, and the parties less popular I have hope.

And I know parties would come up with ways to circumvent, they do in Nebraska. But a non-partisan system would make them weaker, circumventing it makes the parties lives much more difficult, and that is what we need to do. I think we can all agree weakening the two parties is a good thing.

There is no-silver bullet, there is no perfect system. But I think we can all agree the non-partisan system is much better than the one we have.

And you never answered my most important question, why do we still need parties in the information age? They are an obsolete crutch for the lazy and uninformed who cannot think for themselves. Why have a party tell you how to vote? Why not make your own decisions?

[Novus America]

I do NOT propose banning parties, a ban would violate the freedom of assembly.

It goes like this.

What we need is a truly non-partisan political system. This is not only the best option, it is also the only realistic option. To do this we do not need any Constitutional Amendments, just a change in election laws and legislative procedure. We already have non-partisan elections (some Judges for example).
We just need to take the following steps.
1) Remove party designators from the ballot. Name only, no party. Parties are obsolete, you can look up individual candidates on your phone. Make people actually understand the issues before they vote. Parties are nothing more than a crutch for the uninformed.
2) Have open or "jungle" primaries like in Louisiana. Under this system everybody regardless of party runs in the same primary, and if there is no candidate with over 50% of the vote, the two biggest vote winners have a run-off. This removes the spoiler effect thirds parties have. There are other non-partisan systems that work, like instant run off methods, and states could use those if they wish. No more first past the post.
3) Prohibit parties from receiving government support. No more government money to the parties.
4) Change procedural rules to eliminate all partisan positions in legislatures. No more majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, etc. Party groups could still exist (freedom of association), but they would lose all privileges, funding, recognition and support. Legislators would have assigned seats based on their district, they would not be allowed to sit by party.

By doing the above you can weaken the parties, which is the ultimate solution. We do not need parties anymore.

Independents are the largest and fastest growing political group in the US. Independents are the future. And independents, unlike 3rd party candidates actually win elections.”

Note the Nebraska legislature has ALREADY implemented many of these ideas. It can work, it does work.

Forming cabals and secret societies seems to be part of our human nature. I think of the rise of the Know Nothings (American Party), and of unruly cliques such as the Kinderhook gang.

Parties may be overrated anyway; despite their huge registration edge, the Democrats are unable to win Massachusetts' state house.

However, who says the Democrats are a party? Will Rogers said, in answer to a question, "No, I do not belong to an organized political party. I happen to be a Democrat."

True, they do not have absolute power, but they still have too much power. As I have said many times, my system is not perfect. But is it not much better than what we have? Why not weaken the parties even more?

And things like the Massachusetts race prove that independents are the future.

[Themiclesia]

Parties have not emerged as immovable and unchallengeable structures as they now resemble today.

Like-minded people naturally come together, and parliamentary parties are formed as a result; there is no way to prevent this from happening.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

It is eitherRepublicans or Democrats. Either evolution orcreation. Either with us or against us.

(Edited it to reflect my thoughts on these 'dichotomies'.

[Nervium]

Benito Mussolini.

Mussolini was not a king, though Italy was a kingdom at the time, he was not the king.

You said a dictator is an absolutist head of a republic, I proved otherwise.

But this is not the time, or place.
You were just wrong and I pointed it out.

[Themiclesia]

Mussolini was not a king, though Italy was a kingdom at the time, he was not the king.

You said a dictator is an absolutist head of a republic, I proved otherwise.

But this is not the time, or place.
You were just wrong and I pointed it out.

An absolute dictator is by definition a monarch (μόνος single ἄρχων ruler).

[Rio Cana]

i am actually of the opposite view. I think we need less parties.

i would prefer a system with just one party so that a strong leader can make the right decisions

This way the focus can be on the governing of the country (rather than petty competitive elections and partisan theatrics). I think the USA is an example of the sort of divisions, aggressive theatrics, focus on pork barrel politics, and the types of corruptions, divided society that competitive elections foster and create.

I prefer a more united society under the right leader. And if it means one party (be it Republican or Democrat, it doesn't really matter) takes unconditional charge, then so be it.

If you increase the number of parties, you will multiply the hatred across party lines and the divisions across society. It's not the type of society you want to live in trust me.

They say US politics did not use to be so divided. Sometimes it seems US politics is turning into the Colombia of old. Since Independence Colombian Conservatives and Liberals have been at each other. This produced Nine Civil Wars and a nation that by all right should have been an economic power. But the constant in-fighting pulled them down. They even lost Panama since when the US came knocking they had just ended a 1000 day Civil war which had devastated parts of Colombia. Today, Colombia seems to be getting its act together. The US needs to learn from Colombia on not committing the same errors.