Since the two party system is failing, and it's difficult for a third party to make headway, how about this?

Not many people think the 2 party system is failing.

"Many people will not vote for a third party because they are afraid if the third party loses, which it usually does, they will actually be siphoning votes away from the other party that most represents them."

Thats a bit of a fallacy because it assumes that a person voting 3rd party would vote for someone in the other 2 parties if the 3rd didn't exist. Many people stay home from the polls because when it comes to choosing the "lesser of two evils" some would rather sit out. A viable 3rd party candidate would bring out people who otherwise wouldn't vote and that could have a significant impact on the election outcome, possibly pushing it into a run-off.

Nah...too difficult to carry out.

The plain and simple fact is that Third Parties start out as grassroots movements then as soon as they gain just a little attention they seem to think they can jump to the top of the tree.

By that I mean...they win a few regional positions in a few states then spend tons of cash trying to run someone for President.

A third party President would get NOTHING done if both houses of congress are filled with only Repubs and Dems.

A more logical approach would be to spend time and money running third party candidates for the Senate and the House, forget about the Presidency until a third of the House and a third of the Senate are controlled by the third party, THEN run someone for President.

But no....seems the third parties get waaaaaaay ahead of themselves and actually think they have a chance at the Presidency, only to be disappointed time and time again by getting less than 5% of the vote.

There are tons of systems that are better -- it would take large constitutional changes to implement them, though, and the people in power aren't exactly interested in sharing that power with third parties.

Even having a two-stage election would work. In the first stage everyone votes for who they want to win and then just the top two candidates end up in the final election.

You could also have consent based voting where you could vote for as many people as you wanted and whoever gets the most votes wins and more people have someone they feel represents their views adequately.

In the first place, do you have any idea how much more work your idea would entail? Workers would have to count twice as many votes, and it already takes quite a bit of manpower and taxpayers' money to count the votes we cast now.

In the second place, I think the electoral college system works well. The idea is to get a representative sample of American citizen's voting preferences, which is easier and fairer than counting every single vote American citizens cast. The primary reason third parties have a heck of a time gaining momentum is because of social inertia. Habits and traditions gain a certain amount of social inertia--the more social inertia these movements gather, the harder it is to stop them. A good example of two movements that have gained a great deal of social inertia are women keeping their armpits and legs free of hair, mainly by shaving them, when it's perfectly legal for them to have hairy armpits and legs, and people getting married, when there's no law saying they have to. We accept both movements as a matter of course so thoroughly that it's difficult to imagine society any other way. The Democratic and Republican parties have both gathered a lot of social inertia--so much so that third (and fourth, and fifth, and sixth) parties would have to do a great deal to become as popular.

the two party system is not failing. We the People are failing to vote for responsible leaders and failing to stand up and lead. all forms of voting besides one man one vote disenfranchise the voters.

I have been voting for the lesser of two evils but never once forget that I am in fact voting for evil!

As long as there's a run off election it sounds like a plan.

I like the way you think. But in the real world, the powers that be are not going to tolerate anything new when the old way keeps them in power.

To fix or remove this party system, we need to remove this winner takes all bull.