Is there anything worse than the two political parties? Far left vs. far right. One extreme stance countered by another extreme stance? Why is it like this? Where are the normal people that drift to the middle? You know, like most of the people in this country. How many times have you asked: where are the people like me?
One thing is for sure - people like you aren't running for office. And many of them aren't even voting.
Why? Because to run you have to swear your allegiance to one of the two political parties. And then you have to make it through one of their primaries. And who votes in primaries? Only the hardest of hard core voters, and usually the most extreme in terms of political views. But if a candidate chooses not to sign on with one party or the other, they are sunk.
And here's the funny part, everybody has to pay for primaries. Despite the fact that the two parties have billions of dollars and despite the fact that a small fraction of voters vote in primaries, we the taxpayers have to pay for this foolishness, and the inevitable runoffs. What a racket. How much do primaries cost taxpayers? A ton.
http://www.openprimaries.org/taxpayer_costs_of_closed_primaries
Ranked choice voting ends all of this primary nonsense and, with any luck, political parties too. One election. No primaries. No runoffs. Put all the candidates on the ballot and let the voters vote.
And maybe some normal people will run for office if they don't have to pick one terrible side over the other. Wouldn't that be nice?
