The problem is our obsolete voting system which effectively prohibits a third party from winning. Range voting does not have this problem.
Of course the other primary factor in all this is a fourth estate failing to do its job.
Also, duvergers law is not so concrete a truism as people like to think.
>With the compromise constitutional ratio (1:30,000) in mind and given that the U.S. Census Bureau reports that there are currently about 313.9 million inhabitants of the United States, if the Constitution were being followed, there would be approximately 10,463 members of the House of Representatives.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/2157...
I'd be okay with this. It would really change the make up of our government. Senators would seem far more powerful in comparison.
The electoral college would be completely different as well. Using the population data on Wikipedia, at 1:30,000 California would have 1309 representatives and Wyoming would have 20. That would mean in the electoral college California would be worth 1311 points and Wyoming 22 vs 55 and 3 today.
In a more modern electoral system, most of their other points would fall into place naturally.
The classic example was the smaller party FDP some decades ago. Although SPD and CDU each had many more seats than FDP, both needed the FDP to have more than 50% of the seats. So whoever the FDP joined with, that party became part of the government, while the other became opposition. Some people even subjected that this was too much power/influence for such a small party. (Then, more smaller parties received a significant amount of votes, and things became even more complicated, but also more interesting!)
Can you explicitly vote for nobody?
Our compulsory voting is really "compulsory voting". It's "compulsory turn up to a polling station and get your name marked off". You can drop an empty ballot in the box, draw penises on it, or even just turn and walk out of the polling place.
Also, the OP underestimates the impact of the minor parties. While there are two major parties, one of them is a coalition between two parties (Liberals and the Nationals), and there's a significant block of smaller parties and independents that are big enough that when they vote together they can have a deciding vote on legislation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Deb...
Multiple lawsuits have been filed by third-party candidates challenging the CPD's policy of requiring a candidate to have 15% support in national polls to be included in presidential debates. While the lawsuits have challenged the requirement on a number of grounds, including claims that it violates Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules and that it violates anti-trust laws, none of the lawsuits has been successful.
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
They are — as best as I can tell — the only group aiming to reform the electoral formulas used across the country.
The U.S. can't keep kicking its defective cans down the road. Duverger's Law will hold it hostage otherwise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
Of course we can. Especially if they happen to primarily benefit the people already in power and in charge; especially if nobody runs on an election reform platform; especially if most of the electorate doesn't understand or can't/doesn't want to make the mental effort to understand what's wrong with FPTP; and especially if people keep getting distracted by other (admittedly very important) issues during campaigns.
None of these things, however, is as effective as sustained, direct action. Even with our broken one-party-two-factions system this is so.
^Just going to leave this here
“Every four years, we suffer through the celebration of democracy (and national nightmare) that is a presidential election,” Brown wrote in her opinion. “And, in the end, one person is selected to occupy our nation’s highest office. But in every hard-fought presidential election there are losers. And, with quadrennial regularity, those losers turn to the courts.”
They turn to the courts because they're systematically excluded from the debate stage.
Recall the republican voter list leaks last year. Now, consider how much money it would take to gather that much information, at that level of fidelity. Now, consider how much of an advantage a sanctioned party candidate has, when you run against them.
The VPP is the most successful third party (most state reps), and it's only active in one state. The complete inability for other third parties to make almost any progress underscores the problems with the parties themselves (independents have been more successful than third party candidates).