Okay, so there can still be two main parties, but isn't the idea to allow third party candidates to run without taking votes away from the most similar candidate? I haven't studied all the different forms of voting [1]. I know there isn't one that's perfect, I just think we can make some improvements on what we have now. I am not ashamed to admit most of my understanding of this comes from CP Grey's animal kingdom =).

EDIT: Just read a bit about approval voting and score voting. I guess I'll suggest those next time instead of mentioning IRV.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_se...

Talking about criteria with voting methods is like comparing weight and horsepower of race cars. That's the wrong approach. You want to put them on the track and get average race times. You can do this with voting methods too.

http://ScoreVoting.net/BayRegsFig.html http://ScoreVoting.net/PropDiatribe.html