Editing Ballot access (section)

==Other obstacles facing third parties==

The growth of any third political party in the United States faces extremely challenging obstacles, among them restrictive ballot access. Other obstacles often cited<ref name="Libertarian Candidate Faces Uphill Ballot Battle To Challenge Marjorie Taylor Greene – Reason – Joe Lancaster reporting">{{cite web |last1=Lancaster |first1=Joe |title=Libertarian Candidate Faces Uphill Ballot Battle To Challenge Marjorie Taylor Greene |url=https://reason.com/2022/03/10/libertarian-candidate-faces-uphill-ballot-battle-to-challenge-marjorie-taylor-greene/ |website=reason.com |date=10 March 2022 |publisher=Reason |access-date=16 March 2022}}</ref> as barriers to third-party growth include:
* Requirement hurdle of a number of signatures (often in the many thousands)<ref name="Libertarian Candidate Faces Uphill Ballot Battle To Challenge Marjorie Taylor Greene – Reason – Joe Lancaster reporting" /> required prior to placing a third-party candidate on the ballot (a requirement often waived entirely for other parties,<ref name="Libertarian Candidate Faces Uphill Ballot Battle To Challenge Marjorie Taylor Greene – Reason – Joe Lancaster reporting" /> in the US, such as the Democratic and Republican parties<ref name="Libertarian Candidate Faces Uphill Ballot Battle To Challenge Marjorie Taylor Greene – Reason – Joe Lancaster reporting" />);
* Campaign funding reimbursement for any political party that gets at least 5% of the vote—implemented in many states "to help smaller parties"—typically helps the two biggest parties;
* Laws intended to fight corporate donations, with loopholes that require teams of lawyers to navigate the laws;
* The role of corporate money in propping up the two established parties;
* The allegedly related general reluctance of news organizations to cover minor political party campaigns;
* Moderate voters being divided between the major parties, or registered independent, so that both major primaries are hostile to moderate or independent candidates;
* Politically motivated gerrymandering of election districts by those in power, to reduce or eliminate political competition (two-party proponents would argue that the minority party in that district should just nominate a more centrist candidate relative to that district);
* [[First Past the Post electoral system|Plurality voting]] scaring voters from credibly considering more than two major parties, as opponents of one would have to unite behind the other to have the most effective chance of winning (see [[Duverger's law]]);
* The extended history and reputations of the two established parties, with both existing for over 150 years and being entrenched in the minds of the public;
* The absence of [[proportional representation]];
* The 15% poll requirement by the non-government entity [[Commission on Presidential Debates]];
* The public view that third parties have no chance of beating the worse of evils, and are therefore a wasted vote;
* Campaign costs of convincing interested voters that the party nominee has a chance of winning, and regaining that trust after an election where the third party got the third-most votes or [[vote splitting|split the vote]] between two similar candidates so that the most disliked candidate won (i.e. "[[spoiler effect|spoiling]]" the election; this is less of a problem with [[Condorcet voting]] and [[range voting]]).