What if...?

[caketastydelish]

The election was very close even at a national level so they would have had to recount the ballots in every state, not just Florida.

 

[Hygro]

The election was very close even at a national level so they would have had to recount the ballots in every state, not just Florida.

It was a 500,000 difference. Not the most convincing recount split.

 

[Mise]

The presidential system, and don't forget the components of a 2 house legislature and independent judiciary, is really a "don't do things until the consensus is really strong" system. Which, while I think it could have done better at any number of things, has generally not done terribly all that often. Compared to where the UK, EU, and Japan are right now, even as fraked up as the US is at the moment it doesn't look so bad.

So the UK, EU and Japan are frakked up because of their systems, but the US is frakked up because of your politicians? I'm not sure I believe that at all. I can't say for sure that, if the UK had a presidential system, we wouldn't still have torn up our banking laws and told our regulators to take a "light touch" throughout the 2000s. And I can't say for sure that, if the US had a parliamentary system, its leaders would have still, well, done absolutely nothing for two years. It seems to me that the UK's problem was that our leaders have failed us, while in the US the leaders simply couldn't get anything done, even if they wanted to.

 

[Cutlass]

So the UK, EU and Japan are frakked up because of their systems, but the US is frakked up because of your politicians? I'm not sure I believe that at all. I can't say for sure that, if the UK had a presidential system, we wouldn't still have torn up our banking laws and told our regulators to take a "light touch" throughout the 2000s. And I can't say for sure that, if the US had a parliamentary system, its leaders would have still, well, done absolutely nothing for two years. It seems to me that the UK's problem was that our leaders have failed us, while in the US the leaders simply couldn't get anything done, even if they wanted to.

I don't think that's what I said. What I was trying to say anyways is that no system is proof against being run by crappy people. But the presidential system seems to me to be somewhat more resistant. That's not to say that some other systems are not nearly as resistant. The least resistant systems are the ones where either no one is really in charge, or one person is really in charge, or a small oligarchy is really in charge. The more that the people in charge are broad based and publicly chosen, the more resistant to sucking the system is going to be. No system is proof against getting frakked up. But then a system that has less institutional checks on frakking up can still run well if the right people are running it.

I don't think it's fair to say that American leaders over the past 2 years couldn't have done something if they wanted to. Because they very clearly did not want to do anything.

 

[Old Hippy]

Even though the popular vote is more fair than the electoral vote, in the real world, it could make things very hard.

Remember the 2000 bush/gore election? When they had to recount the votes in Florida? Imagine if they had to do that for every single state. It would have taken forever, and it would have been a mess.

The point I'm making is no voting system is perfect. Electoral college isn't the most fair thing but it has less problems otherwise than the popular vote.

or you could have a system where you count the votes, after making sure people are able to vote. pretty out there,I know, but...