Would formally recognizing the Libertarian, Green, Independent, Tea Parties...etc help bring the disenfranchised back to the table, or would it cause gridlock? Can the two-party ship be fixed or should it be traded in for a new model?
I used to think that a two-party system was too limited. But then I realized that a two-party system sorta causes majority rule, or in another way, the official is elected by a majority (>50%) of the votes. I know that this isn't necessarily so anymore. However, with a slight modification, the general election could narrow the field to two candidates, and the primary would be a run-off to elect one of the two. So the people could hardly gripe about a politician because the majority elected him/her (or people abstained from voting). If/when the minor parties become significant, the general election would be totally open (a voter could vote for anyone), and then the primary would be between the two candidates with the greatest amount of general election votes. In this way, a candidate would not be elected with only, say, 23% of the votes.
One of the criticisms of having a three (or more) party system is that it can hand a disproportionate amount of power to minority parties. In the event that no single major party holds an overall majority, minority parties have the ability to dictate large chunks of policy in exchange for providing one of the major parties with a workable majority. At least that's the theory. The reality may turn out to be somewhat different - take the recent Liberal Democrat / Conservative coalition in the UK parliament - the Lib Dems have pretty much abandoned all of their policies in exchange for cabinet seats and their first taste of power in several decades. It will be interesting to see if the coalition can hold together under that basis though.
These parties are recognized. The two party system is semi-informal and is not official US government policy. The two party system is a consequence of the "winner take all" system of elections in which all elections are for specific offices and each election produces only one winner. Also important in creating the two party system is the lack of "instant run-off". As a result if those two rules "no instant run off" and "winner take all" voters must vote against who they don't want by voting for one of the two largest parties rather than vote for who they do want. Now that both major parties are detested by the majority of Americans you would think that third parties could compete but they can't compete as long as the people believe that voting for a third party would be throwing their vote away where as voting for a party that they don't like allows the voter to vote against the party that they dislike more.
The US formally recognizes any Parties people can form and organize, already. In Minnesota we have at least four official ones that have fielded significant candidates, even with the local DFL formally counted as the Democratic Party: Green, Independence, Republican, and Democratic.
All of those parties are explicitly recognized (except the Tea Party, which is just a faction of the GOP) - there were candidates from every one of them on the ballots I filled out earlier this month. The two party system is a structural product of the winner-take-all electoral system, not some explicit ban on other parties. No such ban is needed: the incentive of the two entrenched parties to gang up on any interlopers is more than enough to keep them marginalized.
As pointed out by others, more politiclal parties will do nothing for the American political scene. What is needed is to change the way we elect people to public office. Our current system is very antiquated. We have a plural voting or approval voting system which really limits voter choice. A preference system of voting would yield better much better results and make third party candidates much more viable. I like the Borda Count. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting Maybe our Australian friends would like to weigh in on the topic.
