» Why Having Two Political Parties Diminishes Democracy

Most of us that have been paying attention or that have been involved in the outright “undemocracy” of party politics want to change to a better political party system. Rob Kall, over at OpEd News, says that two things must occur to fix party politics, namely instituting instant run-off voting and equal treatment for all parties (not just the R and D parties) by the states:

August 13, 2008

Cleaning the Two Party Garbage Out of the Drain To Make Room for the Cream of the Heart

By Rob Kall

It’s time for Independents, Democrats and Republicans to come to toghether, in agreement that the congress sucks, to demand equal treatment for third party candidates and instant runoff elections so citizens can vote for the candidates they really want and the lesser of two evil candidates they prefer to settle for.
My youngest, eighteen, is squeamish. I was cleaning garbage out of the sink drain this morning, part of doing the dishes that I’d let soak overnight, when I realized, my eighteen year-old would be averse to putting his hands into the dirty water.

“Not enough cleaning shit,” I thought, recalling the diapers I’d changed on my three kids.
And that’s how my mind wandered to to politics– how politicians have gotten so accustomed to “seeing sausage made,” the analogy so commonly used because watching sausage being made is pretty disgusting, and so are the regular dealings of politics.

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In my state, the punitive laws are so unjust, unequal and unfair that it is almost impossible for a third party candidate to run. And there’s no way that the people can put measures or propositions on the ballot, like in California. It’s a lousy system, rife with cronyism and good ol’ boy machine politics in both parties.

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I am ready to demand that all elections for office be done using instant run-off or some comparable approach that requires that an election come down to two people, with people being allowed to select their first, second, third and fourth choices, gradually eliminating the ones with the least votes– and all that can be done with paper back-ups for recounts and verification.

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The question is, how do we make it happen when the Democrats an the Republicans will both fight this? I don’t have an answer. If you don’t like Obama or McCain, and you’re considering throwing your vote away on a candidate who can’t win, you should, at least, in addition to complaining how both candidates suck, be woring your ass off doing all you can so that the next round, when you vote for a third party candidate, your vote will count. Fail to do that and it makes no sense to use your vote to send your message of dissatisfaction– political masturbation– fantasization that gives you brief relief.

All the third party orgs should be joining together, recruiting independents and huge percentage of Democrats and Republicans who are disgusted with congress and their parties, to build a big, strong movement that demands equal treatment for third parties and some form of instant runoff or similar voting that lets people vote for their most preferred candidates AND second and third choices. Get enough people behind this– there should be tens of millions– and the wisdom of the crowd and the power and momentum of the sheer mass of the people behind this movement will come up with the answers from the bottom up.

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They’ll have to keep their promises and pay a lot more attention to the people. We have the tools, through the net, through instant messaging and texting and all the new media to be much more effective at communicating with our legislators. There’s no reason why every issue facing congress and every state or local government could not be voted upon by the people, and counted by district, or the area any elected offial represents.

The two party system might have been a viable model when candidates travelled by horse drawn coach or train, when they used the postal service to communicate. But in today’s world, the two party system is fetid dinosaur that is, year after year, grinding away at the constitution, at democracy and the future of America. It’s time we the people rise up and come together– from the left and right– to replace it with something better.

What is wrong with having just two parties? Here are just a few things off of the top of my head:

Serves to maintain the status quo.
Allows those already in power to maintain a stanglehold on their power.
Limits the choices of the voter to those candidates who are pre-selected by the party officials.
Allows campaign funds to be overly concentrated in the hands of those already in power.
Squelches the ability of party outsiders to raise funds and get their message out.
Forces voters to choose the lesser of two evils.

And I am sure you can come up with a lot more…

Dedicated to Rosy Malloy who has been volunteering tons of time to a party recently only to inevitably find out that having two parties sucks.