Breaking the two-party doom loop: A book event with Lee Drutman | LIVE STREAM

A century has passed since a third party has posed a serious challenge to the United States’ two-party system. And that is a problem, argues New America’s Lee Drutman in “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America” (Oxford University Press, 2019). Although the Democratic Party and GOP once contained a variety of liberal and conservative factions that made bipartisanship possible, each institution has increasingly defined itself around opposition to the other, catalyzing polarization. The result: a negative spiral of political warfare that is tearing our nation apart.

Dr. Drutman contends that third parties can short-circuit the cycle of binary partisan conflict. Please join AEI for a conversation between AEI’s Yuval Levin and Dr. Drutman on whether a multiparty system can restore America’s political sanity.

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[phillipsindel]

From Australia: We have used ranked choice voting for over 100 years. It is well understood by the people and well regarded. It would transform politics USA for the better. (We also use STV in some cases.)

[aresmars]

Ranked Choice Voting allows voters to rank their choices and perform an "instant runoff" from one ballot that allows a majority to converge behind one strongest candidate. This would be great, but an even more important reform would be to eliminate the Partisan primary.
We can replace it by an Open Primary that could advance the top-4 candidates, or set a threshold like 20% required for advancement. This would allow ALL voters decide who they want to hear from in the fall debates and vote for.
It would allow a challenger from an incumbent's party to present a minority position to ALL voters, without risking the party losing in the general election. An incumbent could lose the primary if they fail to make the top-4 or 20% cut.
The current system is problematic for Republicans who are unpopular within their own party, and get primaried by more extreme candidates. An open primary would allow challengers, but not allow party extremists to eliminate a moderate incumbent who can also gain votes from independent voters.
Combining an open primary and 4 strong candidates in the general election will give voters real choice.