I’d say getting rid of the two party system is best. From, 2004-present, all the major party choices have been within the same quadrant and ever closer to convergence between the parties on average. Bush and Kerry, Obama and McCain, Obama and Romney, and maybe Clinton and Trump are all AR quadrant and close to each other. Third parties are the only choice for people who reject the AR quadrant. The Constitution Party of Howard Philipps, Michael Peroutka, Chuck Baldwin, Virgil Goode, and probably Tim Hoefling is an AR third party, but most third parties are outside that quadrant.

The Green Party has ran candidates for President ever since 1996 because of the state of the Democratic Party and Bill Clinton/Al Gore’s administration. The iconochasm quiz has some revealing info on Al Gore. Also, I wonder what if Ross Perot had won in 1992 and/or 1996. So Bill Clinton and Al Gore rather than Ralph Nader are responsible for losing 2000 and indirectly for the 2004 repeat. It took a rebranding as the party of hope and change for Democrats to win 2008 and 2012. Greens say that hope without willpower is meaningless. After Ralph Nader, the candidates have been David Cobb, Cynthia McKinney, Jill Stein, and probably Jill Stein (unless someone else like Kent Mesplay can get the nomination instead as there are at least four other people than Jill Stein who want to be the nominee of the Green Party in 2016).

This big third party showing in 1992, 1996, and 2000 affected the elections. There was also 1980 before that as well. If you ignore all the major party votes for President, which states would be yellow or green by biggest third party? In 2012, Michigan would have been green like Maine and Louisiana from 2008. All the other states would have been yellow in both elections. For example, my state of Indiana was yellow both times on the third biggest party in Presidential elections chart. It was an interesting thought experiment on what would happen if no one had voted major party in the Presidential election to see third parties on the Electoral College map on a blog. The results were an interesting sea of yellow states all over the country in several recent elections from 2004, 2008, and 2012. Also, the Reform Party has imploded since 2000 and Pat Buchanan.

America having a four or five party multi party system seems to be too radical a solution for some, but there is no real alternative to fixing American politics.

I support IRV as voting reform. If all ballots were cast using that rather than the current voting method, lots of improvements would happen just from that.

All third parties that are the Big Three as defined by Politics1 and their Presidential candidates are linked above from 1972, 1992, and 1996 to present depending on when the party started. Number of candidates listed is less than number or elections the party has been in due to multiple runs via Ralph Nader (1996 and 2000 before Independent runs in 2004 and 2008), Jill Stein (2012 and 2016), Howard Philips (1992, 1996, and 2000), Harry Browne (1996 and 2000), and Gary Johnson (2012 and 2016).

Those are the people who aren’t front runners in their parties, but hope to be the nominee anyway. The nomination will happen in August (for the GNC) and May (for the CNC).