When will we break away from the two party system?

[Vcrew192]

Statewide proportional representation would increase third-party representation. In this system, the voter votes for a party and each party's voter share is added up as a percentage. Party candidates are then placed in office in accordance to their percentage. This would increase third-party representation since a candidate in Illinois, for example, would only need to win 6% of the popular vote to get a seat in congress but it's also somewhat undemocratic and takes power away from local government.

I think a better idea would be to require a candidate to garner a majority of the vote in order to win rather than a plurality. We already have this in several states and it works very well. It essentially works like this: the candidates run a regular campaign up until election day. The votes come in and nobody gets a majority since there were third-parties distracting the vote. The top two vote-earners now compete in a second runoff election. This empowers third-parties because the two major-party candidates now depend on them to be the swing vote and has to campaign to them and bring their issues to the forefront.

[Vcrew192]

I'm very surprised nobody's ever run for President on the populist platform of "give you more choices" promising to call an Article V Convention, change the system, and break the duopoly. More than 60% of people weren't satisfied with their two choices in 2016, and thought they deserved better. It could be a winning issue.

The parties establishments don't want third parties for obvious reasons. They receive the lion's share of contributions from PACs and others because people like their money to go to a winner. If a candidate wants a serious chance of winning they have to please the party establishment in order to get that money and campaign infrastructure. Look at this election season when the debates were first starting, Johnson was only a few percent away from the minimum required to sit at the debates and there was a lot of pressure to let him in. The Commission on Presidential Debates is run by representative of the GOP and DNC so there was little chance of reform. Neither candidate said anything about it because, although it would have looked good to the people, they didn't want to anger their respective parties.