If we had a wide variety of parties and candidates to choose from, it would be credible to say that we the people have the democracy that we deserve. But we don’t.
The Democracy We’ve Decided You Deserve
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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It would not be sufficient to have a wide variety of parties and candidates to choose from, because many people are rightly afraid to vote for other than the two biggest parties, lest they waste their vote. We need ranked-choice voting in the general election if we are to have a working democracy for presidential elections.
Thanks for saying that, Lee. As someone who has been a Green Party activist for twenty years, and seen our party continually rebuffed in its efforts to simply get on the ballot, a process that is controlled by the D’s and R’s, I can only add that their control of our electoral process is the reason we will likely never have a ranked-choice, multiparty system in this country. “Third parties” in the US are as welcome as “second parties” were in the USSR, and for largely the same reason–no challenge to the ruling elite will be allowed.