Despite the nominal presence of independents and other presidential candidates, the financial and political realities of our campaign system create a two party system where only the two most powerful and populous parties — the Democrats and the Republicans — have any reasonable chance at winning a presidential election. By holding primaries for each party which cut the candidates per party down to one, the two party system strips the public of the ability to choose a president from the initial broad range of possible candidates. The only way to be in on the decision of who becomes a party's final candidate is to register with that party; but any person who agrees completely and totally with every opinion espoused by either the Republicans or the Democrats has serious problems and an inability to form his or her own opinion.

• We should return to the original election system — without official "parties" — where the candidate with the most votes wins the presidency, and the candidate with the second most votes wins the vice presidency.
• No primaries would be held because there would be no parties to hold them. Anyone who wants to run can run (subject to the rules governing the required qualifications for office).