Why are we Americans so afraid of voting for Third Party Candidates?

Question

My feeling is that if we vote for the "Lesser-of-the-two-evils" we are still promoting evil. Why does it feel like we are forced to only vote for one of two political parties when there are countless others out there? If we want change in this country, voting for one of the two main parties isn't going to do anything because they are equally corrupt. Democans and Republicrats are essentially the same party; they both impose their morality by limiting our freedom. It seems a lot of people share these views but they continue to play their game. Why is this?

Answer 1

so true... so true...

personaly, I think we had no good choices last year: Little Bush, and Kerry, not the greatest choices.

anyways...
I agree with hyou 100%. Every person that I've asked has said either Bush or Kerry, what happened to the Liberterians?

Anyways maybe you should run for President. Maybe lower some taxes, eh?

Happy Holidays!

Answer 2

[Edited to fix the numbers I screwed up 1st time round.]
Suppose the Dem and Repub are worth 100 and 90 to
you, but the Third Party candidate is worth 999 (i.e. about
10 times more). Then it STILL is stupid to vote third party,
IF you then believe your vote is over 100 times less likely to
succeed. Now since this belief is historically
justified (look at the last 100 years of
US history. Add up how many times
third party candidates have won. Is it below 1%? yes.),
the whole "wasting vote" logic actually does make sense.
(You may deny it - but do the arithmetic.)

So what is your logical course of action now?
(a) pretend the wasted vote logic did not make sense. Keep
wondering forever why it is so many people keep thinking
it does make sense and keep failing to vote Green & Libertarian.

(b) Accept that it does make sense, and also accept that this
is because our democracy is badly designed. In a better-designed
democracy, there would no longer be such a thing as a "wasted vote" - if you voted Green (and thought the Green candidate best) that would NOT diminish your impact on the Dem vs Repub battle.

Assuming you pick (b), you then ask - what IS such
a better-design for
democracy? One answer is "range voting,"
see http://RangeVoting.org .
You can add an endorsement by clicking "endorse."

A wrong answer, but one which many Third Party members
have fallen for, is "instant runoff voting." (IRV still
features wasted votes and "spoilers" and still experimentally
leads to 2-party domination in every IRV country so far.
Examples are found at the web site I mentioned.)

Third parties' failure is just a consequence of strategic
thinking in our voting system, and with the right kind of voting
system, third parties instead would succeed. The "top-two
runoff" and "proportional representation" systems is used in many countries (like France, Chile for T2R and Belgium, Sweden for PR) and those countries usually or always have strong third parties.
It is that simple. The voting system.

Answer 3

Because the two majors have convinced many people that if they vote for a Third Party candidate, they are throwing their vote away, which of course is bulls***. Take the 2005 NJ gubernatorial election. At 40%, the turnout was as disgusting as the campaign. What if half of those who stayed home came out and voted third party? Corzine would probably still be in the Senate.

Answer 4

There are a number of possible factors, including:

- Americans love winners & love being associated with them. They don't like having the person they voted for lose. They think that means that their vote accomplished nothing.

- The "winner take all" system makes it extremely difficult for third parties to get a foothold. If third parties are ever to have an impact in the U.S., some form of representation by percentage of vote will have to take the place of pure winner-take-all. This reform may be decades away at the national level, but wouldn't be impossible at the state level (which is where third parties ought to be focusing their efforts anyway until they have enough of a foundation to seriously vie for federal offices.)

Answer 5

Today, third parties cannot win a national election, that is fact. If you want change in the system you need to change it first and then you will have more choices.

To change the system you need:
term limits in congress, this is the most important
public funding of elections, no big money buying elections
third parties that represent a major portion of Americans, not greenies or libertarians or communists, something not extreme in position

Get term limits and things will change quickly

Answer 6

I would say that it is because if a person doesn't back the one of the two that is a little better, they risk losing both to the one that s/he really doesn't work Example: Gore losing to Bush in part because of Ralph Neder. All Neder needed was 5% to gain a foothold as a third party but instead we got Bush for 8 years. If the Dem-Rep race wasn't as close, I think people would vote more for a third party.

Answer 7

There are a lot of people who just vote for their party, without even knowing about the candidates - which is one of the many problems with our country.

Answer 8

Because they feel so strongly against one that they would rather have the other...

Also, I hear many people say that they would like to vote for a 3rd party but they don't want to "waste their vote"...how dumb is that.

I always vote for 3rd party candidates....most of the time I don't even knw who they are...but at least they are not one of the other 2 parties.

Answer 9

those who discover themselves vote casting for the lesser of two evils opt for a third social gathering, yet none have emerged that ought to tutor they could win. With our First previous the positioned up gadget this is totally troublesome for third activities to ensure themselves even as they haven't any power to commence with. money is likewise an difficulty, Libertarians and vegetables don't have the money power to bypass accessible and run a good campaign. The Republicans and Democrats will make no attempt to attain out to third activities and help them compete because they opt for to save their power. If a third social gathering ought to upward thrust up, someone ought to ought to cajole both human beings on the right or left that their modern social gathering is negative or carry a lot of centrists mutually. If a third social gathering ought to ever deal with to get some seats, they could be able to regulate the gadget. the issue is they could favor a lot of seats to even make a huge difference in how we decide human beings.

Answer 10

It's not fear, it's practicality. It sounds like you're a budding Libertarian. For a while, the Republicans were to a small degree courting the Libertarian vote but with 12 years of domination lost track of them. Perhaps the latest election will reawaken some of those sentiments.