This "Law" assumes there are two distinct parties with two different ideologies. There aren't, There are two right wing (traditionalist for a start) factions of a one party (American exceptionalist ideology) state. Besides: 231,556,622 eligible voters 46.9% didn't vote 25.6% voted Clinton 25.5% voted Trump Nobody is president. Simple, elegant. A workaround for "Duverger's Law" whoeverthefuck Duverger is/was. Rr On 11/09/2016 01:01 PM, jim bell wrote:

------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From:* Shawn K. Quinn 2. As a result of #1, a vote for any candidate who finishes below second place is effectively the same as voting for the eventual winner. Put another way, it robs the second place candidate of the votes needed to win.

This is called "Duverger's Law". See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law "In political science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_science, *Duverger's law* holds that plurality-rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_voting_system elections (such as /first past the post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_past_the_post/) structured within single-member districts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-member_districts tend to favor a two-party system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party_system and that "the double ballot majority system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_systemand proportional representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation tend to favor multipartism."^[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law#cite_note-1 ^[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law#cite_note-2 The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Duverger, a French sociologist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_scientist began calling the effect a "law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law" or principle. Duverger's law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_system and an electoral system: a proportional representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation (PR) system creates the electoral conditions necessary to foster party development while a plurality system marginalizes many smaller political parties, resulting in what is known as a two-party system. While a principle of political science, in practice most countries with plurality voting have more than two parties. While the United States is very much a two-party system, the United Kingdom, Canada and India have consistently had multiparty parliaments.^[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law#cite_note-3 ^[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law#cite_note-4 Eric Dickson and Ken Scheve argue that there is a counter force to Duverger's Law, that on the national level a plurality system encourages two parties, but in the individual constituencies supermajorities will lead to the vote fracturing.^[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law#cite_note-5

"So... in Texas, Trump won. That means voting for Gary Johnson was the same as voting for Trump. Voting for Jill Stein was the same as voting for Trump. Voting for Evan McMullin was the same as voting for Trump. If everyone in Texas who had voted just for Gary Johnson had voted for Hillary instead, we'd be having an entirely different discussion because Trump would not have won."

This development is, in general, very good for Libertarians such as myself. It means that we are going to be consistently influencing elections, probably from here on in. And that means that the two major candidates will have to start listening to libertarians.

...

I will say this: at least Jill Stein or Evan McMullin couldn't have been any worse than Trump. But the system as it stands now doesn't even give them, or others who run outside of the two major parties, a realistic chance to win the presidency. This sucks, but it is what it is.

My proposed solution is to give each candidate for a Congressional office influence in voting, proportionate to the vote totals in the election. If there are three candidates, A, B, and C, with 50%, 45%, and 5% of the vote, the minority candidate gets an office elsewhere, and can neutralize part of the vote of the majority-vote candidate, if he wishes. If the majority-vote candidate is voting on something that is uncontroversial, agreed with by the minority-vote candidates, his vote will get an influence of 100%. If the minority candidates choose the opposite position, the net result will be 50-45-5=0: There will be no net vote from that state.

Jim Bell