Third party systems and electoral college

A high-level overview of the barriers to electoral success facing third-party and independent candidates. A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public. The Third Party System is a term of periodization used by historians and political scientists to describe the history of political parties in the United.

 · As much as Americans may say that they desire a viable third-party option, the Founding Fathers designed the Constitution in a way that makes it almost impossible to have three viable parties Estimated Reading Time: 7 mins.  · The last third-party candidate to pull off this feat was Wallace, in He won percent of the national vote, five southern states and Author: Geoffrey Skelley. How does the Electoral College affect third parties? It does and it doesn’t. It does concentrate campaigns in to a select number of states, which has the effect of raising prices of media buys, consultants, staff, polling etc in those states.

In addition to protecting the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party movements, the practical effect of the Electoral College (along with the single-member district system of representation in the Congress) is to virtually force third party movements into one of the two major political parties. The US electoral college is unfair to third parties, but so is the entire electoral system. It should be no surprise to anyone who has studied the electoral system here in the US that the only state with any viable third party presence is tiny, rural Vermont. Outside that, only a handful of states and cities have a third party presence. But even if one believes that the Electoral College is a defect, I believe there is a much bigger defect in our electoral system: the possibility of a third party candidate changing the outcome of an election. In , George Bush ran against Bill Clinton, but a third party candidate Ross Perot also entered the election.

This event concluded one of the most unexpected electoral victories in American history. The campaign that preceded this election was characterized by harsh rhetoric that exacerbated the deep divisions within the country, as well as the division within both major parties. Despite the widespread unfavorable opinions of the two main party candidates, there was no huge spike in support for third-party candidates. Americans did not vote for third-party candidates because of the truism that a third-party candidate cannot win a national election. The reason for this is the Electoral College and it is time, and they are right.