Two Party System?

Two Party System?

America is based on a two-party system right? WRONG! In fact the founders were bothered by the presents of political parties in the first place. Today we are fast approaching a Mubarak election system where only the ruling political elite are legally permitted to participate. There are 50 different state election legal requirements to get your candidate onto the ballot. And let’s not forget DC and the territories. Some are worse than others but they all generally work this way. Your current party ballot access is based on how well you did in the last election and/or the percentage of people registered with your party. Naturally the two main guys never fall below this percentage and virtually always maintain their ballot status.

For example, in Maryland if you get ten percent of the registered voters to registered under your party banner then you are considered a Primary Party with full ballot access in the state of Maryland. However, before your party can be recognized in the first place as a party by the state you must initially collect thousands of signatures just to get a statewide candidate onto the ballot. From that point until the election people can register as members of your party. If the candidate then polls 3 percent or more then the party can keep its ballot status and continue to register voters under their party. But no third party has ever reached 3 percent in a statewide election so immediately after the election the third party is decertified and all members registered under that party are instantly converted to “OTHER” by the state board of elections. Yes “Other.” Other what? Maybe you’re a communist, fascist or royalist but I’m a Libertarian and we are all lumped in with everyone who is not a democrat or republican. Then you start the petitioning process all over again until you’ve collected the thousands of signatures to get another statewide candidate onto the ballot at which time you must re-register under your just re-recognized political party or you continue to be officially considered by the state as “Other.”

As anyone can see this is designed for one reason - blocking competition against the two main parties, by the two main parties, for the two main parties. Plus there are many other ridiculous regulations for things like petitioning percentages within various counties or residency requirements for petitioners but they are all designed for one thing…blocking competition. These election catch-22 laws also are used to block third parties from debates and give big corporate media ample reason not to provide coverage. I would think Cubans understand that following big corporate media political coverage for voting decisions is not wise because, as with Castro’s Cuba, they are missing the big story to reap big corporate bucks. This is why you never hear alternative idea every election. The left and right are just talking out of different sides of the same mouth and winking at one another while laughing at the rest of us.

So I NEVER, EVER vote for candidates nominated by the two big media, big corporate political parties. I figure if they have to set up rules to block ideas and political competition then they must be hiding something.

Tomas Estrada-Palma