[Etherlord87]

I'm not an expert on this, but the way I see it, the opposite is true: people don't vote on small parties, because if a small party doesn't reach the minimum required, the vote is wasted. This way there's only a few parties (if the minimum is 5% then there can't really be more than 20 parties, and since the distribution is very far from even, you get around around 4-7 parties with 5% minimum).

However, the big parties often consist of sub-factions.

However, it seems there are mechanisms that turn parties into dictatorships with one person ruling everything in the entire party, as well as people get carried away with negative emotions and vote against, polarizing the politics into just 2 parties alternating in power.

[surgical_fire]

Pick any European parliamentarism. You will find at least 4 or 5 parties with some relevance in any country. Besides the UK (with their absolutely bonkers FPTP system), I can't remember a single one with 2 major parties and that's it.

Those smaller parties end up having an important role, because typically the Major parties cannot form a government otherwise. So the major parties end up having to make some concessions to get a coalition going.

It is a stabilizing force.

[defrost]

Australia has a proportional voting "washminster" system with two and half major parties ..

( Labor Vs. Liberal+Nationals OR (cartoonishly) "Masses" Vs Urban-Capital+Rural-LandOwners (comically grotesque oversimplification) )

There are, however, many smaller parties that a great many people vote on first in proportional run-offs.

Australians are well aware that the smaller parties often don't get a seat but they're also well aware that the voltes are tallied to reveal the issues championed by smaller parties and how the secondary preferences "run off" to the majors.

eg: (say) Labor only squeaked in ahead of the Liberals because people that care about issue {X} first then preferenced Labor second .. expecting Labor to address that issue.

Fail to address an issue and the margin votes switch secondary preferences.

( That said, a number of small parties do hold independant seats )

Much of this small party preference voting kicked off from The Australian Democrats, a centrist political party founded in 1977 with the slogan

Keep the Bastards Honest.