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Reply #29: No. Read up on your goddamn political science, Hagel. [View All]

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Selatius Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-20-08 03:15 PM
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29. No. Read up on your goddamn political science, Hagel.
Until the current electoral system of voting and representation, single-member district plurality, is changed, there will likely only be two viable parties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

A two-party system often develops spontaneously from the single-member district plurality voting system (SMDP), in which legislative seats are awarded to the candidate with a plurality of the total votes within his or her constituency, rather than apportioning seats to each party based on the total votes gained in the entire set of constituencies. This trend develops out of the inherent qualities of the SMDP system that discourage the development of third parties and reward the two major parties.

The most obvious inhibiting feature unique to the SMDP voting system is purely statistical. A small third party cannot gain legislative power if it is based in a populous area. Similarly, a statistically significant third party can be too geographically scattered to muster enough votes to win seats, although technically its numbers would be sufficient to overtake a major party in an urban zone. Gerrymandering is sometimes used to counteract such geographic difficulties in local politics, but is impractical and controversial on a large scale. These numerical disadvantages can create an artificial limit on the level at which a third party can engage in the political process.
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