Ron Paul to Run For President! [UPDATE: He Will Not], page 9

As almost always how to enable third party candidates is not discussed. If some of the following five 'simple' measures are implemented third parties will be enabled thus giving the US something akin to actual democracy.

1: Proportional representation is democratic; winner takes all is NOT. The US House of Representatives is thus about as democratic a 'breaktrough' as was ever made in the US.

2: A third party can only begin to receive federal funding ( in the next election ) when it gains 5% of the popular vote in a national election. This is obviously meant to keep third parties from gaining sufficient funds to stage media campaigns and thus a deliberate effort to keep a non representative two party system where both parties propagandize citizens by using their taxpayer funds. Parties can either receive proportionally allocated funds or , more democratically perhaps, non at all.

3: Campaign finance reform should be restricted to individual donations which should be be subject to audits with serious restrictions for those who are owners or board members of listed ( depending on degree by means of national referendum ) companies. They should in my opinion at least be on a separate list for closer inspection.

Obviously there are hundreds if not thousands of books/articles dedicated to campaign finance reform so those are some very basic ideas.

4: Ballot access. There is no democratically viable reason why 'third' party candidate should have to pay to be on a given states ballot in a national election. This cost would easily be carried by the federal and state taxes that are normally levied on those voters. In fact there should be as few as possible measures to prevent candidates from running as paper and, especially, ink are not nearly as expensive as some corporations have decided to make it.

5: The US senate should be outlawed. There is no reason for it to exist beside serving as a way to interfere with or block any progress made in the far more democratic workings of the House of Representatives.

So there's five 'steps' that will enable the formation of a more representative system. Far better to work on that than to just 'vote your consciouns' ( something i support) hoping to get the ear of the one party with two representatives. Sure some of that 50% that isn't voting wouldn't start voting now but a very significant proportion would if they could find candidates that might gain power enough to affect some changes.

Stellar

[edit on 12-9-2008 by StellarX]