Ending two-party tyranny

After last week’s article about Ron Paul’s potential to run as a third party or independent candidate if he doesn’t receive the GOP nomination, I was emailed by Robert Steele.

Steele is a former CIA agent who now runs the Public Intelligence Blog and who is currently touring the county championing his Electoral Reform Act of 2012 with hopes it will become the unifying demand of the Occupy movement.

The act is comprised of 11 proposals to level the playing field for third-party and independent candidates for national, state and local election in the hopes of eliminating America’s current two-party tyranny.

The first proposal is to allow ballot access requirements to be equal for every candidate, regardless of party affiliation. Ballot access laws vary from state to state, but some state’s laws are reprehensibly biased toward the two-party system.

For example, in Pennsylvania’s 2006 state elections, minor party candidates had to collect 67,000 signatures in order to appear on the ballot, whereas Democrats and Republicans were only required to collect 2,000. When voters’ choices are limited, democracy suffers.

The second proposal is to make Election Day a national holiday to allow the possibility of every citizen to easily vote and to require all ballots to be on paper and subject to physical re-count.

The third proposal is to find independent non-partisan means to open up the debates to independent and third party candidates, allowing more exposure for candidates not representing the Democratic or Republican parties.

One cannot oppose this proposal on the grounds that opening up debates to minor political parties will only limit the public’s knowledge and awareness of the “real” (Democratic or Republican) candidates.

Acting on the assumption that only a Democrat or Republican will be nominated will only fulfill that assumption, and democracy will suffer. More exposure to different political parties and their ideas will help break America’s false assumption that the answer to our problems lies in the two-party system.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats, despite the rhetoric from both sides, is quite small. Allowing third-party candidates to have a voice on the national scene will reveal the relative similarity between the two dominant parties and expose to voting citizens an alternative to the status quo.

The fourth proposal is to institute an instant run-off voting system in which a voter ranks his or her preference of candidates.

If there are three candidates in an election, a voter then ranks those candidates on preference. Those who vote for the candidate receiving the fewest amount of votes have their second preference vote tallied to that candidate.

This prevents third party candidates from splitting the vote of a majority-favored candidate and ensures the elected candidate best represents the wishes of the
majority of voters.

In the current system, if most voters prefer A-style policies over B-style, but there are two A-style candidates (A1 and A2), the A votes will be split between A1 and A2 and candidate B will win the election, even though B is the least favored by the majority.

In closing, just consider the mantra of the Electoral Reform Act of 2012.   

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by the simple restoration of integrity to our electoral process and hence to our government, restoring the representativeness and integrity of that government.”

­— sdance@indiana.edu