Guys, guys... stop giving credence to the myth that we have to keep voting for one of the corrupted parties that control the federal government. Yes, you will be stepping forward into a lonely political area, but you can and should vote for one of the other parties that haven't yet proved to be corrupt.
It's not a myth. It's mathematics. We have a winner take all voting system ("first past the post") which means a vote (or ten thousand votes) for a third party who doesn't win is exactly the same mathematically as that number of votes going to the major party candidate least like the third party candidate, because that candidate's strongest opponent is the one who would have had those votes in the alternative, and the winner is defined as the candidate with more votes than the candidate than the second most votes. The candidate with the third most votes is totally irrelevant until they cease to be the candidate with the third most votes. And they can't do that, because the incentives don't work -- if a candidate from e.g. the Green party could actually win an election, the Democrats would just run that candidate on their ticket, and likewise with the Libertarians and the Republicans. Because running two viable candidates who agree on 80% of the issues against a candidate from the other major party is friendly fire -- if you have a district with 60% left-leaning voters and you run a viable Green candidate against a Democrat and a Republican, the two left-leaning candidates split the left-leaning vote and give the win to the Republican. Viable would-be third party candidates are well aware of this, which is why there are no viable third party candidates -- they have an overwhelming incentive to join a major party as soon as they achieve viability.
This is not an insurmountable problem, you're just solving it in the wrong place. If you want a "third party" candidate to win then what you need is for that candidate to win a major party's primary. What is necessary is for people to stop voting for parties whatsoever and vote for candidates instead.
Third party votes are how we punish major parties. Case in point:
"if a candidate from e.g. the Green party could actually win an election, the Democrats would just run that candidate on their ticket"
If the Democrats are drifting too far to the right (i.e. the situation we have right now), then liberals need to vote third party -- until the Democrats get their act together.
Except that it doesn't work. Think about what a Democrat has to do to win if a Green candidate is taking 5% of the vote. The Democrat now has 45% of the vote against a Republican with 50%. If they move to the left to take the Green candidate's voters, the Democrat will stay at 45% and leave 55% to the Republican because moving to the left costs the Democrat votes from the middle. What the Democrats would have to do is move to the right, so that they take 10% from the Republican by losing 10% to the Green and end up winning with 40% Republican, 45% Democrat and 15% Green.
The only mathematical certainty here is that if you keep voting for corrupt parties, they will keep getting elected. If a few swing elections go in the opposite direction, it is a small price to pay.
Both major parties are corrupt. Therefor, electing any non-corrupt party would be a step forward, perhaps even paving the way for ending the two-party system.
We will keep having corrupt government as long as we keep voting it in.
The problem with voting for third parties (which I typically do unless I want to help ensure that the incumbent gets booted out) is that third parties can't win unless they become as corrupt as the two big parties. Otherwise the big parties will grossly out-spend them to defeat them.
When the system becomes corrupted, corruption is really hard to beat from within the system.
