Why do we have 2 political parties for the presidential election? why do we have to choose from only 2?

Question

i know that there are more than 2 parties in the USA. im just saying when its time to vote for president we are only stuck with 2 canidates.

Answer 1

There are many more political parties than the two major ones. You are free to vote for any of their candidates. You will find them on the ballot on election day if they managed to get enough signatures to be put on the ballot.

No law requires that there be only two parties. It got that way because in actual practice, this is best. Here is why. If you have no dominant parties then the vote will be split several different ways. The result would be that the winner would get far less than 51% of the vote. That means that more people could have voted against the winner but he would win anyway.

Imagine four parties and the vote split nearly evenly. If one candidate got even one more percent than the others that would mean only 26% of the voters elected that person. Conversly, 74% did not want that person. It would defeat the entire concept of majority rule.

There are many other reasons, too. If a person from say the Socilaist Party was elected president but there are no members of the Socialist Party in Congress there would not be much the President could do since he has no support.

The current system got that way because of actual practice. In actual practice it works best.

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Answer 2

We do not have a two party system. America has 17 parties that field candidates in elections. Five major parties and twelve minor parties.

Edit:

I am unsure if you have ever voted before, if you have you would have seen more than a Republican, Democrat candidate on your voter card. You would have seen a Green party candidate as well as others. There is also a blank line for you to fill in the party of your choice not listed on the ballot as well.

Answer 3

Sure, there's always been more than two, but practically speaking we just like having two choices, for or against this support or oppose that. Most of the other parties are usually to fringe to gain any real momentum and if a particular idea does catch on, one of the two parties that it fits with the best will adopt it.

Answer 4

In 2004 in Minnesota, we had nine parties on the presidential ballot: Democrat-Farmer-Labor (our state's branch of the Democratic Party), Republican, Green, Socialist Equality, Socialist Workers, Christian Freedom, Better Life, Constitution, and Libertarian.

This varies by state: it looks like Ohio, for example, had only four.

Answer 5

Because the recent attempts to form a ( VIABLE) third Party died after one or two elections. The best recent example was that of Ol' Ross perot's thrid party. People really wanted a third party, but Perot waffled in his first election, and finally it was taken over by Pat Buchanen and made into a joke>

Heres what you need! Get together $100,000,000, an honest and popular American, and a set of core principles (boarder security, protect whats left of American Manufacturing, low taxes...etc) and a media outlet that won't try to torpedo them, and you'll get a viable alternative to the suits now sitting in DC!

Answer 6

There are actually several parties. Green, Peace and Freedom, Libertarian, American White People's Socialist Party, Communist Party, American Independant Party all are valid parties and legal in the US. Most don't have very many members compared to the bigger parties but they do exist.

Answer 7

There are more than two parties to choose from. The others just don't get the recognition that the Republicans and Democrats do.

Answer 8

The US system is kept the way it is by vested interests (the current 2 parties) - there are alternative & better ways (my favourite is a a vs b, a vs c & b vs c top three round-robin with a promotion/relegation to race-for-a-place lower segment of all thr rest with p r in Congress), but will/would the Repdems ever let it happen ? ... Guess not.

Answer 9

You don't have to choose from two. However those two are the only ones people will vote for.

Answer 10

There are more than two. But only two have the money and power to rule you