zlacker

It is for the same reason that I do not visit the beach and attempt to hold back the tides with my hands.

You cannot get elected here as a third-party or independent. Period. If you had a notion to buy your way in, it would be cheaper to pay off the second-place major party to run you as their candidate than to run in your own right. The only place you will ever see a third party on the ballots here is the line for presidential electors.

And for a variety of reasons, in a manner similar to Comcast and Time Warner, the two major parties often choose to not compete in certain areas, to the ultimate detriment of the residents. I write in because when I see only one name on the ballot, that is a mockery of democracy.

If the vote counters hate me, that is exactly what I want. I hate how they support a system that pretends to be democratic.

>>logfro+(OP)
I'm going to be completely blunt - have you actually tried to get someone on the ballot? My experience of uncontested elections is that there simply is only one person in town who wants to be library secretary. Maybe your location is different, but uncontested where I'm from is a matter of indifference not some conspiratorial collusions.

What is your evidence that they choose not to compete? Competing costs almost nothing if someone wants the job and enough people fill out single party ballots that they'd have a good chance.

I'm disappointed that you choose your protest method to be inconveniencing local volunteers in a manner that is even less likely to achieve results than something you compare to holding back the tide.

>>tgb+Au
I got as far as the research. This is not an issue of "library secretary", either. These are state and county offices.

To run for a county office, such as Sheriff, Coroner, Treasurer, Commissioner/Constable, or School Board, as an independent, I would need 5000 verified signatures. To list a party affiliation, I would need about 36000. Based on the experience of the Libertarian Party in 2015, I might face a 60% rejection rate for signatures, meaning I would need to collect 12500, costing roughly $25000.

To keep my party listed as a "qualified party" for the next election, it would need 20% (!) of the votes cast in a statewide race.

The major parties do not need to collect that many signatures, which gives an innate funding advantage for campaigning.

And you might expect that the other major party might not run an opposition candidate for Sheriff in a county where the incumbents are heavily favored every election, but how about allowing the candidate for U.S. Senate to run unopposed? [0] What about three of the seven districts for House of Representatives? [1]

I don't tilt at windmills.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_... : "An independent candidate would have been able to challenge Sessions if at least 44,828 signatures had been submitted by June 3, 2014."

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_of_Representativ... : Districts 4 and 7 were completely unopposed; district 5 had only an independent challenger.