Parties have been ingrained in our political culture since very early on in our country’s history. What this has done is create the environment in which the parties have gained power and influence over the political system. This system allows parties to be able to help candidates through the process of election and ensures people have a more direct impact on elections in general. Also, voting for a major party candidate is good because voters know what the candidates will generally advocate for.
In the two party system there is an extremely high chance that at least one of the candidates will get over 50 percent of the vote. According to the History Channel, the last time Congress was called on to vote for an election was in 1824, with the election of John Quincy Adams. The reason Congress had to be called was because third parties had a lot of influence in this election and caused one of the two main candidates to not get a majority. What this means is the people and the electoral college are the deciding factors regarding who wins the election.
However, when a candidate does not get 50 percent of the vote, Congress decides who the president and vice president are. This is not good for a few reasons. First, a person can only have directly voted for three Congressional officials. This means the vast majority of people who would be deciding this country’s leaders would be people that you had no hand in electing. So instead of your vote actually going toward the candidate you want to be president, you have to hand that power over to people who other people chose to lead them. Even worse, you might have voted against the three Congreemen who represent you, so a person has even less influence over the election of the president. A good reason for people to vote for the two major parties is to ensure that each person has more of a direct say in who becomes president, because if minor parties gained momentum, then no one would get a majority and Congress would be the decider of elections, and the people would have little to no voting power as a population.
Another great quality about the two parties is that they all have platforms that are well known to the public and do not change very much between elections. This is a very good benefit because in today’s politics many people do not pay very close attention to the elections that are happening, so people can rely on knowing what the two major parties support and stand for. This allows people to not have to know about the election, but still stay fairly in touch with what the candidates stand for. Having these well-known platforms keeps American elections in check and simple to follow. Compare this to voting third party or independent, where you would have a harder time following the election without spending a ton of time studying the election. This can cause people to not actually know what the candidate they are voting for is advocating for.
Voting for the major two parties is superior because without it, Congress would be the ones deciding the elections, not the voters. This would create a very faulty political system and ruin voting altogether. Having steady platforms helps the vast majority of voters that do not follow elections to still know relatively well who they are voting for.