Canada will hold a parliamentary election on October 19, 2015. Polls suggest that the New Democratic Party is in a virtual tie with the Conservative Party, with the Liberals trailing badly. For most of its life, the New Democratic Party has been a strong party but not one of the two largest parties. There seems to be a possibility that the NDP will form the next Canadian government. See this story.
This is an example of how party systems can bring new parties into power. Canada does not have proportional representation but it does have equal and tolerant ballot access.
Canada does not have government-operated primaries for private political organizations.
Neither do Washington, California, or Louisiana.
No country in the world, other than the U.S., has government-administered elections for parties to choose party nominees or party officers.
Yes, Canada does have much better ballot access than the U.S. That plays a role. It also has a different relationship between geography and partisan demographics, one that allows new parties whose strength is concentrated in one or a few areas to win seats and therefore start to gain traction. And it has a parliamentary form of government, which I believe to be less hostile to multi-party systems than presidential government.
Go SoCreds!
The United States does not administer any elections, the individual states do. So California, Washington, and Louisiana are comparable to Canada. It appears that ballot access in those states is easier than in Canada.
Ballot access in California and Washington is supremely difficult. Only two candidates are permitted to be on the ballot in the election. Potentially even someone with support of 32% of the electorate can be barred from running in the election itself.
California voters have fewer choices in the election itself than the people of any nation in the world (among those which hold elections), excepting only North Korea, China, and Vietnam, which usually have only one candidate on the ballot.
California uses a two stage election process. It is erroneous to refer to one of those stages as “the election” or “the election itself”.
For your example of a candidate with 32% support not advancing, there would be two other candidates not advancing. In Canada, one of those two would be elected with under 36% support.
“California uses a two stage election process. It is erroneous to refer to one of those stages as “the election” or “the election itself”.”
Really? How is it an election if no one can be elected to anything? Even if a candidate polls over 50% of the vote in the so-called open primary that person does not win office. I could see your point if that were not the case.
“Appears to supplant Liberal Party” is incorrect. The New Democratic Party is already the “official opposition” in the Canadian Parliament as it has more MPs than the Liberal Party.
Therefore, they have already – at least temporarily – supplanted the Liberal Party.