Lets talk about the American Voting Sytem and how it should change

[edw]

I think our voting system is very outdated and it needs to be revamped, but since it favors a 2 party system I don't think it will ever change, at least any time soon.

What type of alternative voting system do you think would work better?

Well it's a union of states, in my opinion the best this is everyone votes at home (state) and at the federation level things should be more simple, like a 2 party system yes.

[Felya]

Make voting a requirement and shift to absentee voting instead of in person.

[Spectral]

Seems like a fairly great way to get a ton of corruption.

I am not aware of systems that effectively mitigate corruption. Cultural mores seem to do a decent enough job in some places, but systems don't really seem to effectively impact corruption much at al.

The upside to a system primarily controlled by power-players is the prevention of the Trumps and Reagans of the world from gaining traction. Fuck populist rhetoric.

I don't have an ideal system in mind, but I think it's pretty easy to see the flaws in our current highly democratized elections. The candidates have degenerated a lot relative to the past.

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Make voting a requirement and shift to absentee voting instead of in person.

Yeah, getting the least motivated, most ignorant potential voters more of a say seems like it'll help

[Felya]

I imagine a 3rd party candidate would have just as little of a chance winning under electoral college and majority vote.

They would... The problem is the idea of voting for lesser of two evil that both parties promote, for obvious reasons.

[Felya]

Yeah, getting the least motivated, most ignorant potential voters more of a say seems like it'll help

You can paint them as pejoratively as you like to come to your conclusion. I see people's jobs and other commitments as the most likely reason for not voting, which is why I included absentee voting as part of it.

[Waniou]

The electoral college saved us from an Al Gore presidency. It's a tragedy that it wasn't able to save us from an Obama presidency.

Liking a voting system because it got the guy you wanted to win, kinda implies you don't like democracy and would prefer a dictatorship.

Voting is not about winners and losers. It's about accurately representing the will of the people. A election is "won" when the results most closely match what the people want.

To answer the topic at hand:
1: Ditch the electoral college. Mostly for the reasons Grey states in the video. It's a stupid system and makes no sense.
2: Preferential/Alternative vote for the president. It eliminates the need for primaries because both parties can just put up their best candidates for president and you can say "I want Bob for the democratic party to be president but if not him, then I'm fine with Jill but I don't want any republicans so I will vote 1: Bob, 2: Jill" and you aren't hurting your party by voting for a third party.

3: With regards to senate/congressional voting... I'd say switch to single transferable vote. It's similar to AV except elects multiple candidates and it keeps local politicians, so you get a pretty decent congress/senate out of it.

[Spectral]

...kinda implies you don't like democracy and would prefer a dictatorship.

This is a false dichotomy. The only thing that can actually be drawn from Darkacid's post is that he doesn't think the Presidency should be determined purely by who received the most public votes. There are many possible systems that pick a leader that didn't receive the most votes and most of them do not involve dictatorship. The actual extant system is a form of representative democracy that has a layer that some regard as protective.

[Wells]

I am not aware of systems that effectively mitigate corruption. Cultural mores seem to do a decent enough job in some places, but systems don't really seem to effectively impact corruption much at al.

Oh come on Spectral, just because no system can get rid of corruption entirely doesn't mean a given system can't encourage it. You're advocating government by appointment with only the barest of accountability.

I don't have an ideal system in mind, but I think it's pretty easy to see the flaws in our current highly democratized elections. The candidates have degenerated a lot relative to the past.

To what point in our past?

[Waniou]

This is a false dichotomy. The only thing that can actually be drawn from Darkacid's post is that he doesn't think the Presidency should be determined purely by who received the most public votes. There are many possible systems that pick a leader that didn't receive the most votes and most of them do not involve dictatorship. The actual extant system is a form of representative democracy that has a layer that some regard as protective.

Yeah but that isn't what he said. What he said was "Hooray, electoral college meant Al Gore didn't win!"

[Spectral]

Oh come on Spectral, just because no system can get rid of corruption entirely doesn't mean a given system can't encourage it. You're advocating government by appointment with only the barest of accountability.

I don't see how there's no accountability there. Or, at least, I don't see how there's less accountability than the present system. You're just accountable to a different group.

To what point in our past?

I'd say that the post-Eisenhower Presidents have been a comparably unimpressive lot to just about any other 50-year block. To be fair, Reconstruction-era Presidents were pretty trash too, but I think there's a kind of obvious reason for that.

Presidents, of course, aren't the only relevant politicians though, so this may not be an ideal measure.

[Wells]

I don't see how there's no accountability there. Or, at least, I don't see how there's less accountability than the present system. You're just accountable to a different group.

Accountability to fellow party members is hardly accountability in any useful form. It doesn't ensure competence, only party fealty.

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I'd say that the post-Eisenhower Presidents have been a comparably unimpressive lot to just about any other 50-year block. To be fair, Reconstruction-era Presidents were pretty trash too, but I think there's a kind of obvious reason for that.

Presidents, of course, aren't the only relevant politicians though, so this may not be an ideal measure.

This really does seem like rose colored glasses with only lip service to actual history is my point.

[Spectral]

Accountability to fellow party members is hardly accountability in any useful form. It doesn't ensure competence, only party fealty.

I don't really see how electing local officials, presumably from across more than two parties, and having a pseudo-parliament creates a system that's more about party bosses than the current model.

This really does seem like rose colored glasses with only lip service to actual history is my point.

Maybe we disagree about a big chunk of history or something. That's possible. I think there's been a clear trend towards degenerate Presidencies though. That Trump and Cruz have non-trivial chances of winning furthers this argument.

[Obelisk Kai]

I'm gonna be blunt.

The American voting system is probably the worst in the democratic world and that includes first past the post constituencies in Parliamentary systems.

I mean it is freaking terrible. I almost believe you couldn't design a worse system if you tried.

Let's take a look at the why, shall we?

Your constitution. Americans seem to take some perverse pride that their constitution has endured so long with so little change. Other countries have ripped up and replaced their constitution when they found them no longer fit for purpose but the United States keeps chugging along with a document designed to govern an agrarian, rural republic with a vast frontier.

The usual defense of this archaic document is that it includes a mechanism for it's own update via amendments that should keep it relevant. The problem is the document is so difficult to amend that in these hyper polarised times the chances of any meaningful update are essentially zero.

So why the defense of the constitution? I hate to say it but I am of the opinion that it has been fetishized by a young nation that required a few totems, a few symbols of their own uniqueness that they could unify around. This emotional unity is so strong that even when the constitution to me looks like it is actually holding you back, nobody seriously debates replacing it. There are reasons Ruth Bader Ginsburg recommended to a foreign audience they NOT use the US constitution as a template. It's a really bad way to run a state.

It is the source of the original sin of your government's dysfunction. There is a heck of a lot wrong with how your Government is run and it leads back to your constitution and your own very American distrust of government. Your ancestors seemingly designed a system that would produce logjam and I am pretty sure it was deliberate. Change would be incremental, consensual and very, very slow. Perfect for a rural republic in the early 19th century...terrible for a continent spanning hyperpower in the early 21st.

And the electoral college for the US Presidency is one of the worst examples of the bad choices they may have deliberately made. I mean it deliberately hands power to just a few individuals within your system, not the hyper rich but those lucky enough to live in swing states. At a stroke you've disenfranchised the vast majority of the country because their votes are almost always taken for granted.

This leads to the result that candidates for the Presidency are not running for a national office. They are running to be the most popular politician in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania!

The ultimate indictment of the system is that it can allow an individual with fewer votes but more electors to win the Presidency. That should be a fatal flaw. It is a damning indictment it is not.

[PC2]

The system is actually relatively good. It prevents any one side from over-dominating for too long, unless they truly have such a good policy that it brings lasting prosperity.

[zenkai]

The system is actually relatively good. It prevents any one side from over-dominating for too long, unless they truly have such a good policy that it brings lasting prosperity.

No, the problem is there are only 2 sides because of our voting system

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I'm gonna be blunt.

The American voting system is probably the worst in the democratic world and that includes first past the post constituencies in Parliamentary systems.

I mean it is freaking terrible. I almost believe you couldn't design a worse system if you tried.

Let's take a look at the why, shall we?

Your constitution. Americans seem to take some perverse pride that their constitution has endured so long with so little change. Other countries have ripped up and replaced their constitution when they found them no longer fit for purpose but the United States keeps chugging along with a document designed to govern an agrarian, rural republic with a vast frontier.

The usual defense of this archaic document is that it includes a mechanism for it's own update via amendments that should keep it relevant. The problem is the document is so difficult to amend that in these hyper polarised times the chances of any meaningful update are essentially zero.

So why the defense of the constitution? I hate to say it but I am of the opinion that it has been fetishized by a young nation that required a few totems, a few symbols of their own uniqueness that they could unify around. This emotional unity is so strong that even when the constitution to me looks like it is actually holding you back, nobody seriously debates replacing it. There are reasons Ruth Bader Ginsburg recommended to a foreign audience they NOT use the US constitution as a template. It's a really bad way to run a state.

It is the source of the original sin of your government's dysfunction. There is a heck of a lot wrong with how your Government is run and it leads back to your constitution and your own very American distrust of government. Your ancestors seemingly designed a system that would produce logjam and I am pretty sure it was deliberate. Change would be incremental, consensual and very, very slow. Perfect for a rural republic in the early 19th century...terrible for a continent spanning hyperpower in the early 21st.

And the electoral college for the US Presidency is one of the worst examples of the bad choices they may have deliberately made. I mean it deliberately hands power to just a few individuals within your system, not the hyper rich but those lucky enough to live in swing states. At a stroke you've disenfranchised the vast majority of the country because their votes are almost always taken for granted.

This leads to the result that candidates for the Presidency are not running for a national office. They are running to be the most popular politician in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania!

The ultimate indictment of the system is that it can allow an individual with fewer votes but more electors to win the Presidency. That should be a fatal flaw. It is a damning indictment it is not.

Nothing is wrong with our constitution and I think its good that it takes a large majority of votes to change, you don't like that it gives us freedoms? Yeah lets rip it up and put in a dictator, good idea

[Obelisk Kai]

The system is actually relatively good. It prevents any one side from over-dominating for too long, unless they truly have such a good policy that it brings lasting prosperity.

No it isn't. Your division of powers is so complete that no side can ever actually win and implement their agenda. Instead each side is in turn undermined by the minority the cycle after to the point your politics moves incrementally in endless circles and you can never tackle the big issues.

[PC2]

No, the problem is there are only 2 sides because of our voting system

Then make a 3rd side, the system doesn't prevent you from doing so. The fact that you cant reach a critical threshold means your ideas are not very good.

[Tyrgannus]

Lets just flip coins on all major decisions. Wed get so much done lol

I was so frustrated about this.

[Obelisk Kai]

No, the problem is there are only 2 sides because of our voting system

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Nothing is wrong with our constitution and I think its good that it takes a large majority of votes to change, you don't like that it gives us freedoms? Yeah lets rip it up and put in a dictator, good idea

See what I mean? Criticize the constitution and Americans get offended. It's become a TOTEM that you worship as a symbol of who you are rather than the document that organizes your state.

It is clearly hopelessly out date and can easily be improved with a constitution that, oh I don't know, facilitates actually getting something done?

P.S. Your counter-points are the definition of Strawmen. Nowhere did I say I hated your freedoms or that you need a dictator.

[PC2]

Your division of powers is so complete that no side can ever actually win and implement their agenda.

That is a strength, it means we have to learn to compromise and work with eachother.