Would the USA be Better off with 7 Major Political Parties?

@LordShadowfire no one actually voted for two, it just kind of worked out that way. it is a fair observation however that those two major parties go to great trouble to maintain the status quo.

@GerOttman I mean on your post. Someone responded to you to say two parties are just fine.

@LordShadowfire oh click.. didn't see the response just the vote. was there a comment with it?

@GerOttman I don't think so. Just a vote for continuing with our current broken system.

@GerOttman Having only two major parties is a natural result of first past the post voting.

@ninalanyon Not quite: you can have three or more parties (as does the UK and some European countries) but by people, not ballots, forming those parties.

If the elections become dominated by only two it is only because the others are insufficiently attractive to enough voters.

Britain has largely been dominated by Labour and Conservative for nearly a century, but has had one or two Liberal ones. Their successor, the Liberal Democrats, does attract votes but not enough to win many seats because behind the electioneering, it doesn't offer much the others don't. Similarly with the Green Party though many of its demands may be too extreme to be very popular anyway; and they have yet to gain sufficient, proven Parliamentary experience. The separatist parties of course, have their own, self-selected franchises.

Between them, England, Scotland and Wales have something like five parties.

The simple majority-count system does work: others methods tend only to create messy coalitions wobbling vaguely around some undefinable centre-ground. That could be dangerous, ripe for some far-out party to spot something the others miss among the electorate's apparently-coherent wishes, and exploit it.

What is far more harmful is the wasted vote - which is not one for a "losing" party, as some seem to imagine; but is one wilfully not cast, or on a spoilt ballot-slip, or in some insincere "tactical" move by a voter unable to spell "abstain".

(Have you noticed how those wanting that option, call it "None of the above" [candidates / parties], not "Abstain? If they don't know the correct word I doubt they'd understand even a village-hall committee!)

The American situation is that they really only have two parties!

@ArishMell Part of the reason that they are insufficiently attractive is that everyone knows they will not get any seats so no one votes for them because there is no point. In a system like the UK where you have first past the post and one MP per constituency it is perfectly possible for millions of people spread over the whole country to vote for minority parties and gain not a single seat.

@ninalanyon Yes, a sort of chicken-and-egg situation; but you'd think the parties themselves would realise that and do something about it.

@ArishMell But what can the parties do about it? They have no or nearly no influence in government and they can hardly ask their voters to all move to the same few constituencies to vote.

@ninalanyon See also https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2019/09/17/political-elections-game-theory/

@ninalanyon By finding out what their rivals offer, and seeing what credible, practicable and affordable alternatives they can offer themselves, with a good chance of delivering them if in Government. Then by as many of their constituency divisions as practicable, fielding suitable candidates.

@ArishMell Still doesn't help if they are evenly spread over the country.