End the current two-party duopoly

[Reed Davis <rd100@delphi.com>]

> Let's face it! 3rd party candididates ARE currently "locked
> out" of the process, as we witnessed in the presidential
> debates. There's this whole "Qualifying" issue. If somehow
> we could figure out a way that 3rd party candidates could
> gain access, without the requirement of having to pull 5% of
> the vote. I believe that was Nader's MAIN motivation for
> staying in the race when he and his Green party knew beyond 
> any reasonable doubt that he could NOT win the election.

You bring up a very important point.  I was likewise sorry to
see Nader serve as a spoiler in the election.  However, I place
much more blame on the two major parties than I do on Nader.
The rules created and supported by the two parties state that,
in order to qualify for public funding (and, I believe, to be in
the debates), a candidate must have previously gotten a certain
percentage of the votes.  Then, when a third-party candidate
attempts to do that, the two parties kick and scream and accuse
the voters of throwing their vote away.  The Republicans did
that with Perot and the Democrats did that with Nader.  When
the election is over, does any member of either party ever
suggest a solution?  No.  In truth, they both prefer the current
system.  They're willing to lose an occasional close election
in exchange for locking out third-party candidates.

I think the solution is to either modify the election process
so that third-party candidates cannot serve as spoilers or to
change the requirements for obtaining public financing and
being in the debates.  One way of doing the former might be by
having some sort of automatic runoff election when no candidate
gets a majority of the vote.  This could be done by allowing
each voter to vote for the candidate that they truly want and
voting for a backup from one of the major parties should a
runoff be necessary.

The latter option of changing the requirements could be
accomplished by basing the funding and debate appearance on a
non-electoral vote taken at the time of the election or at some
other time.  At the very least, we could remove the hard cutoffs
in the requirements.  For example, if a candidate gets 3% of the
vote, we should give them 3% of the public funding in the next
election.  Likewise, they could get about 3% of the debate time.
I can understand not allowing Nader and Buchanan in all of the
debates in the last election but I think they should have been
in ONE of them.  In any case, the solution to the third-party
problem is not trivial.  But it's rather telling that neither
party has ever addressed the problem, much less, suggested a
a solution.

Reed Davis