Here's a segment from C-SPAN Washington Journal from 7/21/2025.

Lindsey Drath on Expanding the Two-Party Political System https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/lindsey-drath-on-expanding-the-two-party-political-system/662767

She speaks well and really appeals to me. Someone else listen and tell
me what she gets wrong.

She's promoting ballot access for the Forward Party. Andrew Yang put
cash into this but I think they've moved beyond his influence.

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On 2025-07-21 4:01 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Here's a segment from C-SPAN Washington Journal from 7/21/2025.

Lindsey Drath on Expanding the Two-Party Political System https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/lindsey-drath-on-expanding-the-two-party-political-system/662767

She speaks well and really appeals to me. Someone else listen and tell
me what she gets wrong.

She's promoting ballot access for the Forward Party. Andrew Yang put
cash into this but I think they've moved beyond his influence.

That's pretty lengthy - 42 minutes - and it's not my country so I'm
inclined not to watch this. We are already well past the two party
system here and have been for my entire life.

Mind you, we got closer to a two-party system this past spring with our
last election. The NDP collapsed, going down to just 7 seats from their
normal 30-40 seats, and the Bloc Quebecois also lost 10 or so seats.
Even the tiny Green Party slipped from 2 seats down to 1. The two big
parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives took almost all the votes
for the first time in a long time. This election was felt to be
existential by a significant body of people; unfortunately, more of them
chose the Liberals than the Conservatives and we missed the chance to
finally be rid of the knuckleheads for a while....

While the (federal) government of this country have always been formed primarily from the Liberals or Conservatives, there have been cases
where a government of national unity has been formed, such as during the
World Wars. There have also been several times when one of the two major parties didn't have enough seats to form a government by itself and had
to work with one of the smaller parties to govern.

In a nutshell, I'd say you shouldn't sweat the advent of an additional
party or two. I don't think it's going to be the end of the world if it
happens to you. Mind you, I'm not sure how you will adapt your system to
extra parties.

--
Rhino

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Rhino <[email protected]> wrote:

. . .

In a nutshell, I'd say you shouldn't sweat the advent of an additional
party or two. I don't think it's going to be the end of the world if it >happens to you. Mind you, I'm not sure how you will adapt your system to >extra parties.

I'm in favor of voters having more choices.

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On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:01:05 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<[email protected]> wrote:

Here's a segment from C-SPAN Washington Journal from 7/21/2025.

Lindsey Drath on Expanding the Two-Party Political System >https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/lindsey-drath-on-expanding-the-two-party-political-system/662767

She speaks well and really appeals to me. Someone else listen and tell
me what she gets wrong.

She's promoting ballot access for the Forward Party. Andrew Yang put
cash into this but I think they've moved beyond his influence.

By "promoting ballot access" do you mean "having their candidates'
name on the ballot"?

Because no question that CAN be abused - Canadian Conservative party
leader Pierre Poilevre could speak to that - voters in his district in
the April 2025 election were handed a ballot with 100+ names on it and
this was considered THE primary element in his defeat. He is now
facing a by-election and again the same types have managed to get 50+ candidates on the ballot.

When my grandfather was twice a federal candidate in the 1960s and
each time his party had to put up a deposit (refundable if he got a
certain %age of the winner's vote count). Back in the 60s the deposit
was $50 - now it's $250. Meaning that putting up 100 candidates costs
at most $25000 if no other attempt to campaign is made. That was a
serious deposit back in the 60s - far less so now. That's chicken feed
for federal candidates - at least serious federal candidates.

Does the US have such a system for candidates - and if so what are the
required deposits?

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On 2025-07-21 10:43 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:01:05 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<[email protected]> wrote:

Here's a segment from C-SPAN Washington Journal from 7/21/2025.

Lindsey Drath on Expanding the Two-Party Political System
https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/lindsey-drath-on-expanding-the-two-party-political-system/662767

She speaks well and really appeals to me. Someone else listen and tell
me what she gets wrong.

She's promoting ballot access for the Forward Party. Andrew Yang put
cash into this but I think they've moved beyond his influence.

By "promoting ballot access" do you mean "having their candidates'
name on the ballot"?

Because no question that CAN be abused - Canadian Conservative party
leader Pierre Poilevre could speak to that - voters in his district in
the April 2025 election were handed a ballot with 100+ names on it and
this was considered THE primary element in his defeat. He is now
facing a by-election and again the same types have managed to get 50+ candidates on the ballot.

When my grandfather was twice a federal candidate in the 1960s and
each time his party had to put up a deposit (refundable if he got a
certain %age of the winner's vote count). Back in the 60s the deposit
was $50 - now it's $250. Meaning that putting up 100 candidates costs
at most $25000 if no other attempt to campaign is made. That was a
serious deposit back in the 60s - far less so now. That's chicken feed
for federal candidates - at least serious federal candidates.

I'm sure I heard recently that (Justin) Trudeau dropped the deposit
requirement for candidates entirely shortly after first getting elected
in 2015. Was I misinformed?

Does the US have such a system for candidates - and if so what are the required deposits?

--
Rhino

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On 2025-07-21 10:43 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:01:05 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<[email protected]> wrote:

Here's a segment from C-SPAN Washington Journal from 7/21/2025.

Lindsey Drath on Expanding the Two-Party Political System
https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/lindsey-drath-on-expanding-the-two-party-political-system/662767

She speaks well and really appeals to me. Someone else listen and tell
me what she gets wrong.

She's promoting ballot access for the Forward Party. Andrew Yang put
cash into this but I think they've moved beyond his influence.

By "promoting ballot access" do you mean "having their candidates'
name on the ballot"?

Because no question that CAN be abused - Canadian Conservative party
leader Pierre Poilevre could speak to that - voters in his district in
the April 2025 election were handed a ballot with 100+ names on it and
this was considered THE primary element in his defeat. He is now
facing a by-election and again the same types have managed to get 50+ candidates on the ballot.

According to this article, there are now 132 candidates on the ballot
for Poilievre's by-election - and there is still time for more
candidates to sign up!

https://www.insauga.com/poilievre-calls-for-law-to-block-long-ballot-protests-that-abuse-democracy/

I like the reforms he's proposing to make it harder for people to put up spurious candidates, particularly a requirement that any given person
can only nominate ONE candidate. Under the present rules, every one of
the current 132 nominees could have been put up by the exact same 100
people. I wouldn't be opposed to a small deposit being required too,
just as it was for many decades. Even using the old deposit amount of
$200 would quickly discourage frivolous candidates (except perhaps a
wealthy AND frivolous candidate) without being an insurmountable barrier
to almost any serious but impoverished candidate. (Heck, even the
Communist parties came up with the deposit amount even if they only got
a handful of votes each.)

When my grandfather was twice a federal candidate in the 1960s and
each time his party had to put up a deposit (refundable if he got a
certain %age of the winner's vote count). Back in the 60s the deposit
was $50 - now it's $250. Meaning that putting up 100 candidates costs
at most $25000 if no other attempt to campaign is made. That was a
serious deposit back in the 60s - far less so now. That's chicken feed
for federal candidates - at least serious federal candidates.

Does the US have such a system for candidates - and if so what are the required deposits?

--
Rhino

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On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 23:23:20 -0400, Rhino
<[email protected]> wrote:

I'm sure I heard recently that (Justin) Trudeau dropped the deposit >requirement for candidates entirely shortly after first getting elected
in 2015. Was I misinformed?

Does the US have such a system for candidates - and if so what are the
required deposits?

Apparently you're right - and 2017 would definitely have been on
Justin's watch

https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=med&document=nov0817&dir=pre&lang=e

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