It should be Easier for Third Party Candidates to get on the Ballot

First off, thank you Cryingwolf334 for taking up this debate. For clarification purposes, my method of making it easier for Third Parties to get onto the ballot is the same method our forefathers had to create this country, being that they simply needed a party and a candidate to represent it. No signatures, no fines, no ridiculous paper maze, just democracy at work. Now to points disprove your points. 1) Difficulty is good - It is not. The reason that people are not interested in politics anymore is because it is so hopeless to get involved. The Two has made it so. They have formulated voting and ballots so that the peoples voice is gagged, made an extremely complicated maze of paperwork so that its hard for them to even get equal footing, and have had the gaul to even make there be a cost for voting, so even if someone wanted to take action they might not even be able to afford it. Now, because of this, only the voice of the Two is heard. Under the guise of these 'general ideas' as you say, people think they belong to a party, and thus are under the delusion that that party will just take care of them as long as they vote for them. They then get complacent, under the impression that everything is alright. This is why only 20% know, because only 20% actually care anymore. Back when America was founded, nearly every single person cared about politics because they mattered. But now, because it is so complicated to understand, let alone act in, politics has just been left to politicians. The people have been brainwashed with monotony. They've heard the same message over and over again that they don't care anymore. This is exactly the reason why third parties are needed. Politics needs a new voice! Or voices! Someone willing to break the droning and start saying things differently. Why is environmentalism so popular these days? Why is National Health care suddenly going through peoples minds? Because someone new spoke out on it! This is what any third party will do: speak out. New ideas will emerge, some people agree with, some that they don't, but the point is they will start thinking! They will pay attention and start to actually think about their values, rather than which side they fit in best with! Once new things happen, people will pay attention, and I guarantee that that 20% will raise to 80% in less than 5 years. Third parties will actually increase people's political attention, rather than detract from it. The 20% now only gives further proof that the Two is failing and corrupting it's people. 2) Skewing the Election - The current system is already skewed. That's how Andrew Jackson and Al Gore lost both of their elections. Even though they clearly won the popular vote, and the electoral college is supposed to accurately simplify and represent those votes, they still lost. Therefore, even if it did remain only the Two, the voting system is already flawed. But supposing what you did say had any merit, and as I've just shown, it doesn't, that is still not an excuse, especially in today's technological world. With the advances we have today we should easily be able to keep track of any number of votes for even 50 parties. The difficulty of counting them is not the people's job, but the vote counter's. Our job isn't to simplify theirs. Instead, we are suppose to give them a job they have to work at. Next, you say that the election could be taken advantage of. Not necessarily. Currently, that is the case, only because there are only two ways to go. Already majorities are turning the vote tides. This is a technique politicians are perfectly aware of and use. McCain knows to strike at veterans and war supporters, Obama is tackling minorities, and Clinton is going for women and special interest groups, all of which add up in the end. Third parties would also be able to do the same thing. Sure the Evangelicals could take a huge chunk, but there's also Catholics, Agnostics, Businesses, etc that any candidate could go after. Besides, not every single Evangelical will simultaneously agree with only 1 candidate, there are always mixed feelings in any group. So this claim of yours is flawed, in many, many ways. Third party groups bring the choice back to Americans. There's more selection, more opinions, more idea's. Continuing this reign of the Two is not only illogical, but also the exact opposite of core democratic values. The Two already practically a dictatorship. There's only 1 difference: its a split dictatorship. If its not one ruler then it can only be the other. There are only two voices. Two voices though, cannot speak for everyone. Third parties are the true upholder's of democratic values, as they give the people back their voice, not generalize and manipulate it. So, I have just shown that your claims are not only already in claim now with the Two, but in many ways were created by them. I have shown that Third parties can fix these problems of yours. So what other reasons do have to show why a more people oriented, more democratic, and more logical political system should not be put into place?