Question

1.What specifically would need to change in United states  electoral system (federally and within the states) for one or more strong third parties to emerge?

2. What rules will have to change and how will they have to change?

3. What are the pros and cons of having one or more third parties able to win elections?

Answer 1

To answer this question briefly, let's first understand how electoral system works in United States :

The elections to choose a government in United states are held at three levels namely : Federal, state and local levels. A body known as electoral college comes into picture for the election of the president who is elected by the people of each state. All- elections wether federal, state and local are administered by the individual states. The only  used system in US for election is know as the first-past-the-post-system, where the candidate which gets higher number of votes wins the election.

At the state and local level the elections are held by respective legislative branches of each state.

To ans 1 and 2nd part, I would be mentioning few pointers, that would highlight, what would change, rules to change and how to change and improve the US electoral process :

* Equal opportunities should be given to each candidate contesting US federal elections : Basically, by providing free air time for television broadcase, each candidate can present their views to public in general and express their ideas and ideologies. This would eradicate a barrier, for the ones who have less money and less name so that they can also come on air to present their thoughts.

* Accepting responsibilty for negative campaign commercial - At the end of each television commercial, the candidate should come infront of camara to accept, that the message they have delivered and the campaign which has run, more committee have paid for them.

* Candidates more expressive shoud be valued more : Usually, the personality having more money usually wins the election. To solve this problem, debates over national television, should be held so that people can choose between the right ones. The candidates who refuse to debate, their names should be lined with red against their name on the ballot.

* Poll results misinterpreted : A lot of misinterpretion held in the US elections last time. To solve this, an ad hoc committe should be established who should look closely and monitor the poll opinion of the people reported by newspaper, television stations and networks.

These parameters implementation would help emerge more than one third parties to win and rule.

Ans 3. Definitely, if there are pros of something then cons are also there. If more than one third party contest and win the elctions the major benefits would be :

* More supreme powers would be able to rule the nation effectively and efficiently

* Proper orientation and strict monitering of the processes.

* Some issues which go un noticed, on that also proper work would be done.

Only one con, which i personally believe that would emerge would be :

* Mismatch of the opinion between parties and communication gap. It's quite obvious that more people means more choice of ideas and thoughts. This can eventually lead to the clashes between various winning political parties.

Hope this helps !!