The showdown between Joe Biden and Donald Trump concludes in only a few weeks. It’s important to ask why there are only two main party choices for voters. 

Our government’s most detrimental flaw is the way our elections are set up. We depend on the two-party system. Democrat or Republican, blue or red. Many people don’t pay attention to all of the ideals of each candidate; their focus is on the party. 

We are often divided between the two political parties. Although other parties exist, they are not the main ones you hear about. When an election is about to come around the corner, you hear the words Democrat and Republican. 

Neither party does a good job of representing the people of this country, just a group that identifies with them. Everyone believes differing things and no party equally represents the ideals of the entirety of the population. The parties are more like opposites on many topics making it impossible to represent and unite people under one president.

The two-party system wasn’t even something many people wanted. George Washington, the first president of the United States of America, did not want political parties as they cause division within a country. Many of the founding fathers also warned against a party system. A party system of some sort was inevitable since no one can agree on everything. The way we set up our parties, however, was avoidable. There are many alternatives to the two-party system that are seen in other countries, such as ranking the presidential candidates, which there are more than two of, in order of preference and continuing until someone has the majority of votes. A nonpartisan system is also an alternative, which doesn’t focus on political parties at all. A nonpartisan system would require people to listen to each candidate without the political bias that comes from parties.

We would benefit more from multiple parties than our flawed two parties. There have been people outside of those political parties that have won elections outside of presidential elections but they stand a better chance inside the two parties. The success of third party candidates is more important than some may realize, it means there are people out there who listen to the candidates. The last presidential election with a major third-party candidate was the election of 1992 when Ross Perot ran as an independent candidate, receiving about 19% of the popular vote.

More than two parties separates the ideals of groups such as liberals, socialists, libertarians and conservatives into more specific political parties compared to what we currently have. Right now we have a system that may cause socialists and liberals to vote for Democrats due to the party having closer ideals and libertarians and conservatives to vote Republican for the same reason.

We are blinded by a candidate’s party which causes us to not take note of some major issues that may occur during the person’s presidency. 

Pay attention in the next few weeks leading up to the election, you can watch the presidential debate starting Sept. 29. Notice what each candidate says and does; don’t go purely based on party. By doing so, we can replace the two-party system and fix the rift between the people of this country.