In the United States, citizens are afforded certain freedoms: the freedom to express oneself, the freedom to assemble, the freedom to worship as one chooses. All these freedoms are granted, except the freedom of choice, at least when it comes to picking a party besides Democrat or Republican in an election.
In many other countries, like Canada and Israel, a multi-party system exists, in which more than two parties dominate the political sphere. In the United States, however, while third-party candidates do occasionally win smaller elections, such as Sen. Angus King winning Maine’s election in 2013, larger elections such as the presidential election have been historically dominated by the two biggest parties, with no third party candidate having ever won a presidential election. Because of the the United States’s two-party system, voters are deprived of nuance in political parties and choice in major elections.
In the 2016 presidential election, multiple independent or third-party candidates ran for office, from libertarian Gary Johnson to Green Party member Jill Stein. Longtime independent Sen. Bernie Sanders even ran under the Democratic ticket during the Democratic primary election.
However, none of their efforts were met with success. The most successful third-party contender in the election was Johnson, who garnered almost 4.5 million votes, but this number paled in comparison to winner Donald Trump and runner-up Hillary Clinton, each of whom netted upwards of 60 million votes. As the back-and-forth exchange between Democrats and Republicans continues, the majority of Americans, whether Democrat or Republican, are not truly satisfied. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that 71 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress do their jobs, and 65 percent disapproved of Democrats.
Despite the distaste the public has for both parties, the majority of voters still fail to elect independent or third-party candidates. According to Duverger’s law, the electorate is more likely to vote for the person with the greatest chance of winning than the person they believe is the best candidate. This voting pattern occurs because there is no “prize” for a third-party candidate who gains 15 or even 25 percent of a vote. Because of this, voters end up putting officials they are not fully represented by into power. Despite all this, a stigma remains against third-party candidates, largely because they often “split the vote” between the two major party candidates, inevitably being blamed by the losing party.
In addition to preventing a voter from picking the candidate they really want, the two-party system also hurts a voter’s chance of finding a candidate who suits them in the first place. Many issues are treated in the binary sense by both parties, such as the majority of the Republican Party being against gay rights, or the majority of the Democratic Party supporting gun control. People are treated as unwavering, unchanging entities who vote with a party’s platform, without regard for personal view or experience. Individuals who are stuck between parties, for example those who support both LGBT rights and the right to bear arms, are reduced to voting on an issue that matters to them more, rather than being able to vote for a candidate who addresses all of their problems. Many in this group, largely encompassing Libertarians (who are often socially liberal and fiscally conservative) are forced to weigh their views, compromising other issues they may also care about when voting for a candidate they believe has a chance at winning.. This, for example, prompts many to vote for the Republican Party because of their staunch anti-abortion position. In turn however, they are hurt by the very party they voted for when Republicans lower taxes on the rich and cut social programs many rely on.
By offering voters only two choices, choices that often don’t act in the general populace’s interests (see: Clinton and Trump), the two-party system forces people to vote against their interests, and doesn’t offer them the wide range of choices that they and their nuanced views deserve. For the needs of a population to be addressed, proper representation is needed, and the two-party system doesn’t offer that.