Do you think America should go back to a system without official political parties? Why or why not?

@BlueVeins what do you mean by the spoiler effect?

@Sadpicasso Say there are three candidates, and -- for the sake of simplicity -- around 60% of the populace leans liberal and around 40% of the population leans conservative. And let's say there are three candidates, two of which lean liberal and one of which leans conservative. The two liberal candidates split their side of the vote 50/50, and the conservative candidate wins the whole conservative vote. So the percentages come out as 30%, 30%, and 40%, respectively, giving the conservative the plurality despite having a less popular ideology.

It's more complicated, of course, but that's the principle.

@BlueVeins You pretty much get that anyway in any nation with a first past the post system.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Yeah, that's kinda what I'm sayin'.

@BlueVeins interesting idea there. Would be interested to see the difference with that

@YoungPoet345 Well, what it fundamentally, mathematically means is that you could have more than two candidates running and still end up electing the true most popular candidate. And if you can have as many parties running as you want, there's no absolute need for voters to organize into parties.

Now, they'll probably do it anyway because organization allows for coordinated campaigning and lawmaking, but at that point, we've done everything within the purview of policymakers to weaken the parties' grips.

@BlueVeins makes sense.