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Grow the Independent Movement

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“If it were up to me, I'd get rid of political parties. I think that’s a big source of the agita because everybody plays for their team. Everyone’s a bandwagon fan, and we don’t really get to talk about the issues." Mark Cuban

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Growing the independent movement requires the elimination of the many barriers to participation for all the American people, regardless of party or persuasion. When the major parties argue about election rules, they never talk about the 40% of Americans who identify as independents. We are sometimes an afterthought when they're running for political office. Meanwhile, most voters want more choices at the ballot box. (See this LIV news blog about this.)

 

LIV wants a multi-party America supported by the Center for Competitive Democracy (CCD) and Mark Cuban, an avid supporter of the CCD. We like the system envisioned by Lee Drutman, political historian and author of "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop." Drutman's response to the partisan bickering between and internal to both parties is this,

 

"Diversity of perspective is a strength, not a weakness...We need strong, healthy parties for democracy to work well. We just need more than two."

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Drutman also suggests the way forward to "more than two" is through a system of multi-member districts and rank choice voting in this short article in Politico. Though open primaries are better than closed ones, how about making all parties pay for their own primaries and moving to one general election in November with rank choice voting and multimember districts? This opens the debate and cuts down on the war between the two parties with us voters in their crossfire.

TAKE AWAYS FOR ACTION

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  • Pick up a copy of Lee Drutman's book, Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop
    and watch this interview with Drutman hosted by Andrew Yang, who recently left the Democratic Part
    to begin efforts to build a new party -- the Forward Party.
     

  • There is no one better on these topics than Richard Winger, of
    Ballot Access News. Winger's critical review of Katherine Gehl's
    book about "Top Five Voting" is a helpful overview of mechanisms to open
    up electoral competition -- our mission at LIV.
     

  • Read LIV Advisor, Mark Miller's four-part series on
    "The Quest to End Two-Party Rule."

     

More To Do's:

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LIV Supports These Critical Electoral Reforms
To Win Competitive Elections:

Fair Ballot Access

Redistricting Reform: End Gerrymandering

Rank Choice Voting for Texas Now in Play!

We'll let our friends at Rank Choice Voting for Texas, tell you about this.

Protect and Extend Texans' Right to
Initiative, Referendum and Recall (I R & R)

Homegrown Petitions

Texans' most potent tool to take back your town.

Term Limits and
Ending Straight Ticket Voting
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