Two-Party System

[Erik Fuls]

Below is a research paper I did in May of 2010. It is a copy and paste of the word doc. If anyone would like a good copy, send me a message and I can email a .pdf to you. I also have a copy of all my source material and some extra I did not use if anyone is interested.

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Two-party system:

Why a third major party cannot break into the mainstream?

Erik Fuls

Sullivan University

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Abstract

Are you Republican or Democrat? This is a question that has been asked in this country for 150 years.
Between 1854 and 1860 the Whigs were replaced by a third party called the
Republicans. This came about, despite structural barriers, because of the issue
of slavery. Not since the Civil War has there ever been an issue as severe as slavery
that caused a restructuring of American politics (Abramson
& Aldrich, pp. 349-350). The culture and
social habits of Americans have held onto these two parties and provided little
option for other major national political parties.

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The founding fathers did not intend to form political parties while drafting the Constitution. Over time, the
two-party system became dominate in the United States without any formal
structure set up. There have always been third parties in politics, but none
have ever broken through the barriers to at least bring the country into a
multi-party system. With the Republican and Democrat parties holding so much
power they have erected barriers for a third party to have actual influence on
U.S. politics and to obtain the Presidential office. There are many reasons why
a third party has had little success in breaking into mainstream politics,
ironically, none of them are legal.

The current structure of the United States politics is a two-party system. This system is based on a psychological
factor called ‘sophisticated’ voting. Virgilio Afonso Da Silva (January2006, p. 34) from the University
Of Sao Paulo, Brazil quoted a passage from a book written by A. Downs in 1957
describing the ‘sophisticated’ voting theory as:

A rational voter first decides what party he believes will benefit him most; then he tries to estimate whether this party
has any chance of winning. He does this because his vote should be expended as
part of a selection process, not as an expression of preference. Hence, even if
he prefers party A, he is ‘wasting’ his vote on A if it has no chance of
winning because few other voters prefer it to B or C.

This type of voting causes the third-party chances of gaining a seat to progressively
decrease and eventually become a micro party or totally phase out. This is the
fundamental reason why third parties have no success. For a third party to have
any type of chance in obtaining the Oval office, the United States needs to
change to a multi-party system. One mechanical constraint is the current use of
a single-ballot. To support another party a second ballot and further polls
would be needed (Abramson & Aldrich, 1995, p. 353). In the 1950’s, a French
political scientist named Duverger, created ‘laws’ that pertained to political
systems. One such law he wrote favored and even fostered a two-party system (Da Silva,
January2006, pp. 38-39):

The extreme reductive effect (i.e. a two-party system) can be caused by a set of factors in addition to mere electoral
dynamics (in which party structure and social homogeneity are two key factors),
but since electoral system apply pressure of varying intensity to reduce the number
of parties, a two-party system is favoured and even fostered by majority
systems.

Harold Hotelling (October50) summed it up best by
saying “No matter how much the voter prefers the candidate and platform of a
small third party to those of both the major parties, he can usually find some
ground for preferring one of the major parties or its candidate to the other. Since
he is virtually certain that the candidate of his first choice will not be
elected, the dissident voter usually votes for that one of the two major-party
candidates whom he prefers to the other.”

There are several definitions for the major parties, but only one for the third party. Generally, Republicans have
tended to support limiting federal powers and protecting the authority of state
and local governments. Conversely, Democrats have tended to take a more
expansive view of the powers of the federal government, to support raising and
spending money to address social ills on a national basis (America.gov, 2007). A Third Party is
any political party that is not one of the two dominant parties and that
receives a base of support and plays a role in influencing the outcome of an
election (Congressional Digest, October2008, p. 256). Currently the
largest third party is the Libertarian Party. They have been registered since
1971 and are also one of the oldest active parties. Other popular parties are
the Green Party and the Constitution Party. The generic term most associated
with third party politicians is Independent, who actually has no party
affiliation. This makes it easier to gain ballot access in most states. The two
major parties absorb a lot of dissention that might otherwise turn into third
party challenges. At least one major party will adopt some of that third
party’s agenda to stave off defections and gain those votes.

There are 4 main areas that are barriers to third party participation. The first two pertain to the voting system itself
and include the single-member district, and the Electoral College. The
single-member district system only allows one party to win in each district.
Whoever wins the greatest number of votes (not the majority) in any given
district is elected. This is known as plurality. This is contrary to a
proportional system that may have several members. The single-member system
greatly supports the two-party system (America.gov, 2007). The Electoral College is a process
that began as part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution. It was a
compromise between the election of the President by Congress and the election
by direct popular vote. While there are no Federal Laws regarding electoral
votes, some so-called faithless electors are fined or disqualified in some
states. But as of yet, no elector has been persecuted (Congressional Digest, October2008, p. 227). The Constitution
spells out the rules for presidential election in Article II, Section I and
modified by the Twelfth Amendment. Under the original provisions each elector
has two votes, both for President. If no candidate won a majority, then the
U.S. House of Representatives choose among the five candidates with the largest
number of electoral votes. If there was a tie, the House would choose between
these two candidates (Abramson & Aldrich, 1995, p. 350). With all states and
D.C. except Maine and Nebraska, electoral votes are winner takes all. The other
two have proportional allocations of electoral votes (Congressional Digest, October2008, p. 256). States could
allocate their electoral votes by proportional representation, but no state has
ever done so. Most states use the plurality-vote system, which creates an
additional obstacle to third-party and independent candidates (Abramson
& Aldrich, 1995, p. 352). There have been
over 700 proposals in the past 200 years for constitutional amendments on
changing the Electoral College (Congressional Digest, October2008, p. 256).

The second two areas pertain to cultural and structural constraints. Just as with anything we do as a society, we do
things together. Traditionally Americans have tended to be divided into two
separate camps when it comes to national issues. We are prolife or prochoice,
prolabor or promanagement, et cetera. Our Culture tends to support a two-party
system. There are three main structural
barriers to a third party; State ballot access, debate access, and the primary
election system. To appear on a state ballot it takes somewhere between
two-thirds of a million and a million signatures collected nationwide to get a
candidate’s name on the ballot in all 50 states and D.C. Currently with the
voting population around 212 million that is almost 1/2 of 1% of the
population. The next hurdle is debate access. It generally takes 15 percent of
popular support as registered in the various polls to qualify for being part of
the presidential debates. Basically, if a candidate cannot be heard (not
participating in debate), they can’t get gain support. Since third parties are
excluded from debates this is a real disincentive for third party participants.
The third structural barrier is the primary system. The primary election is
where voters choose who will run for president for each party. This is where
all the nominees are narrowed down to one person per party. The United States
has the most open nominating system in the world, and it encourages dissidents
who might otherwise go to third parties to try their hand at winning the major
party nomination. When a candidate does not finish successfully as a major
party candidate in the primary election, it’s usually too late to go the third
party route (Gillespie & America.gov, 2004). A new trend is a
candidate will become an Independent. This allows them to avoid the primary
election since they have no party affiliation and can go right to the general
election, if they have enough voter support to have ballot access, and enough
support to participate in a debate.

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References

Abramson, P. R., & Aldrich, J. H. (1995, Fall).
Third-party and independent candidates in American politics: Wallace, Anderson
and Perot. Political Science Quarterly, 110(3) , p349-368.

America.gov. (2007, January 10). Political Parties in the United States. Retrieved May 14, 2010, from America.gov:
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/January/20070109140...

Congressional Digest. (October2008). The Electoral College System. Congressional Digest 87(8) , p227, 256.

Da Silva, V. A. (January2006). Duverger's Laws: Between social and institutional determinism. European Journal of Political Research
, p31-41.

Gillespie, J. D., & America.gov. (2004, August 30). Third Parties in American Politics: Rich History, Many Roles. Retrieved May 14,
2010, from America.gov: http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/August/200408301654...

Hotelling, H. (October50). Why We Have the Two-Party System. American Journal of Economics & Sociology 10(1) , p13-15.