by Madison Paige

When you think of a single party state, you think of repressive regimes where opposition is outlawed and citizens have only the semblance of democracy in elections. But in dozens of states and hundreds – if not thousands – of communities nationwide, we, in America, have a defacto single party system. Wikipedia defines such a system as “a dominant-party system that, unlike the single-party state, allows, at least nominally, democratic multiparty elections, but in which the existing practices or balance of political power effectively prevents the opposition from winning elections”.

So while we tut-tut the undemocratic single party systems in other countries, we effectively are practicing the same thing here in America.

“There are local communities where there’s not been a Democrat, for example, on the ballot in decades,” says Madison Paige, micropolitics advocate and co-founder Bold Blue Media Alliance, Inc. a local and state Democratic services and training firm. “In these communities, people literally have no choice as to their representation. We think it’s obvious how dangerous that is.”

In Alabama in 2012, only six seats statewide were contested. All the rest had only one name on the ballot. In state after state and community after community, this pattern repeats itself. The pattern becomes even more noticeable at the local level.

“Well, I think the barrier, obviously, is often money for a campaign,” says Paige, “But also that, in a lot of these places, there is such a lopsided acceptance of one political viewpoint over the other that anyone with an opposing view knows there’s little chance of winning. It’s a lot to ask of a candidate; to run a campaign they know they will lose.”

With 2014 elections approaching, parties are scrambling to field candidates. In some places, the search has been especially difficult.

“What we believe is that this change, this transformation has to start somewhere,” says Paige. “When we talk about other countries, about introducing democracy in other countries, especially in countries where a single party or a defacto single party system has been the norm, we recognize that it’s a process, don’t we? We understand that it will take time to change ‘hearts and minds’. But here in our own country, in too many places, we are ceding democracy by default. We’re not taking advantage of opportunities to ‘change hearts and minds’ by running campaigns everywhere. I really think that has to change if we’re ever going to turn things around in America.”