Should Gary Johnson and Jill Stein be invited to the debates?

[RaphaelDLG]

Many people are very unhappy with both major party nominees, so it would be nice if we moved away from the two party duopoly. There are countries with FPTP that still have more than 2 significant parties, such as Canada and the UK.

That doesn't mean that their systems are better. We should probably move to an Alternative Vote format before expanding the party system.

Their systems aren't better, they still have FPTP. Other countries have better systems.

That's where you're wrong - we both have fptp but their executive is elected by their legislature whereas ours is not, an important, relevant difference.

They can have multiple parties but they really only have two major parties within each burough - lab vs con, con vs lib dem, lib dem vs lab, lab vs snp, etc depending on the borough.

  We could have that at our Congressional level but not at our presidential level.  And Castro's right, we desperately need IRV or something like it so 3rd parties can become relevant.

[RaphaelDLG]

Yes, if they poll reasonably well, and it's an undemocratic rigged outrage that they have been shut out.

Are Stein and Johnson a little dingbatty standing next to a normal person like Hillary Clinton?  Of course.  Would i advise battleground state voters to pick them over clinton?  No.  But their unique, important political perspectives desperately need to be aired.

15% is an outrageously high standard.  Maybe something like 1%, which I had in mind, is too low, but maybe it would be sufficient combined with the excellent ballot access rule chairman Sanchez mentioned above.

[RaphaelDLG]

Many people are very unhappy with both major party nominees, so it would be nice if we moved away from the two party duopoly. There are countries with FPTP that still have more than 2 significant parties, such as Canada and the UK.

That doesn't mean that their systems are better. We should probably move to an Alternative Vote format before expanding the party system.

Their systems aren't better, they still have FPTP. Other countries have better systems.

That's where you're wrong - we both have fptp but their executive is elected by their legislature whereas ours is not, an important, relevant difference.

They can have multiple parties but they really only have two major parties within each burough - lab vs con, con vs lib dem, lib dem vs lab, lab vs snp, etc depending on the borough.

  We could have that at our Congressional level but not at our presidential level.  And Castro's right, we desperately need IRV or something like it so 3rd parties can become relevant.

For comparing Parliament and Congress, they are basically the same system. Of course the Prime Minister is elected differently than the Congress.

No, not even close, reread my post closer to understand why they are different enough that it affects what you're taking about.

 Can you have a coalition executive government in a presidential system like the US like you can in a parliamentary system?  (Hint: the answer is no)

[RaphaelDLG]

Many people are very unhappy with both major party nominees, so it would be nice if we moved away from the two party duopoly. There are countries with FPTP that still have more than 2 significant parties, such as Canada and the UK.

That doesn't mean that their systems are better. We should probably move to an Alternative Vote format before expanding the party system.

Their systems aren't better, they still have FPTP. Other countries have better systems.

That's where you're wrong - we both have fptp but their executive is elected by their legislature whereas ours is not, an important, relevant difference.

They can have multiple parties but they really only have two major parties within each burough - lab vs con, con vs lib dem, lib dem vs lab, lab vs snp, etc depending on the borough.

  We could have that at our Congressional level but not at our presidential level.  And Castro's right, we desperately need IRV or something like it so 3rd parties can become relevant.

For comparing Parliament and Congress, they are basically the same system. Of course the Prime Minister is elected differently than the Congress.

No, not even close, reread my post closer to understand why they are different enough that it affects what you're taking about.

 Can you have a coalition executive government in a presidential system like the US like you can in a parliamentary system?  (Hint: the answer is no)

Again, I wasn't talking about the President and Prime Minister, I was talking about Parliament and Congress. A coalition government in Congress would be possible.

How it could start would be the green party running strongly in every deep blue district and winning a significant # of seats so it could wield some influence. It would risk not getting committee assignments and having any say within the house of Representatives until it got large enough to prevent the Democrats from having a majority.

 It would kind of be analogous to the progressive caucus within the Democratic party but outside of it.

I think the real problem is that there's absolutely no reason for someone to be a green as opposed to a progressive Democrat or even an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and in fact because of the rules within the houses , fundraising structures and realities, and election laws it in fact really pays to at least nominally be associated with the Democratic party.