If what you say is the case than we need to revise our system of voting, not surrender and keep going down our present path.
Our system is biased toward the two major parties remaining in power. Back in the day, third parties routinely moved into power, but today it's nearly impossible because our lovely representatives are stacking the deck against it. Between the fear-mongering, the federal campaign subsidies, and dozens of other ballot access and similar restrictions, it's impossible to run a third party on a level playing field.
Systems such as Condorcet or Instant Runoff Voting are flawless and take away the power of the two major parties, forcing candidates to run on the same level as third parties. But you'll never see this happen because the permanent incumbants who run this country don't want to be on a level playing field.
Want to throw your vote away? Vote for a Republican or a Democrat. No matter who wins you're going to get bigger government, reduced liberties, less security, and more trouble. A majority of Americans are not Reps or Dems, but they vote that way out of fear, ignorance, laziness, or a combination of those three.
This is not to say that third parties are blameless. I see many third party candidates position themselves so that their supporters hurt the lesser of two evils. This does not need to be the case. Also, third parties have a habit of running candidates who simply are not viable. As I often say, if you're not a CEO, General, Governor, or a Federal House/Senate member, you shouldn't be running for President.
While unviable candidates do contribute to third party unelectability, they are not the primary reason why third parties are held down in this country. Nowadays it seems that the media picks the winner before the people do - we can blame our reliance on media and pop culture for this, but that enters into a whole other debate.
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Originally Posted by (eburchelli,) It's neither a right or a duty. Voting is a privilege. We have a representative republic, not a democracy. Majority does not rule here. Each individual makes up the whole of our government.
Voting in the Presidental election in the US for anything but a Democrat or a Republican is throwing your vote away. It's a simple truth and everyone who votes for a 3rd party candidate has either thrown his vote away or cast his vote against the person he would most probably be more in agreement with.
If a protest vote is your schlick, go for it, but you lose the privilege of complaining when the guy who gets elected does something you don't like.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>