How many political parties are there in your country/state?

As xfactor said, there are many political parties in the US, pretty much whoever wants to start a political party can, and on top of that there is the "independent" label for those who can't pick one party. The major political parties are Republican and Democrat. The major "third parties" are libertarian, green, and constitution. Also, independent Ralph Nadar received the third highest percentage of the vote in the 2008 presidential election.

There is a common myth that in the U.S, there are 2 parties. However, there are actulay at least 50. We of course have the Democrats and Republicans. After that, we also have the libertarians, the Green party, the Consittution aprty as the next in line and a number of smaller less viable parties. the reason these lesser parties aren't heard form is that A.) people don't seem to be willing to brak the mold and begin supporting them demanding media coverage, demanding their presence in the debates and B.) the media has a vested interest in the 2 big parties and the 2 big parties have vested inertest in the media, in short, their in bed with each other. the only ones who can break this cycle in this country are us, the voters. Our parties aren't owned or run by the government, they are privately owned by the people.

We have a lot of different parties in the Uk but three main parties. There is the labour party, which is in power at the moment. Then there is the Conservative party which is the main opposition and the Liberal democrates are the third one. we also have the green party, UKIP, which is against our membership to Europe and there are several parties from Northern Ireland. We also have a party called the Monster Raving Loony Party and I am ashamed to say we also have the British Nationalist Party who are Nazis and very racist. As we are a democratic country, which some people do not understand because we have a monarchy, we have to let anyone stand for election as long as they obey the rules.

Australia has 2 major parties and currently two minor parties, although often there have been three minors. One of the major parties, the Liberals, has been in coalition with one of the minor parties, the National Party, for well over half a century. The other major party if the currently ruling Labour party. The fourth party is the Greens, and we also have a couple of independents. Our voting system uses preferential voting, where you list all candidates in the order you like them. If no candidate gets an absolute majority on the first count, then the least popular candidate's votes are distributed to the second pick on those ballots, and so on up the list until one candidate has over 50% of the votes. This doesn't tend ot affect the lower house a great deal, minor parties rarely get a candidate elected there,. but the senate is another matter. The senate is elected by states, with each state having ten senators. Half are up for election at each federal election, and the way the prefernetial voting works for the senate, which is different to the lower house and a bit too complicated to explain quickly, means that minor parties have every chance of getting senators elected. The Greens at the moment have 5 senators and there are two independent senators; between these 7 people, they control the voting results in the senate, as neither of the major players has a majority. Lash