[crazy1van]

> Democracy is a farce in this country.

Where did this claim come from? None of the (many) scandals in the election so far have involved fraudulent voting. Democracy in America is very far from a farce. Instead it's more that you don't like the choices the voters have made.

[cyphar]

America's electoral college voting system is a joke though. Not to mention that voting isn't mandatory. Australia solved both of those problems with a preferential, mandatory voting system.

[nixos]

> Not to mention that voting isn't mandatory. Australia solved both of those problems with a preferential, mandatory voting system

How will that stop corruption? Presumably, when someone is being dragged to vote, he'll vote for "the more familiar name", in other words, the name most repeated on TV, in other words, the one who raised the most funds.

If anything, voting should be hard (but fair) so that only people that actually know something about the candidates (and political system) should be able to decided which one is better.

How to do that? No idea.

[cyphar]

> How will that stop corruption? Presumably, when someone is being dragged to vote, he'll vote for "the more familiar name", in other words, the name most repeated on TV, in other words, the one who raised the most funds. If anything, voting should be hard (but fair) so that only people that actually know something about the candidates (and political system) should be able to decided which one is better.

You could also (rather than viewing it as an education issue, that "dumb people shouldn't be allowed to vote" [not a quote]) see it as a representation issue. If only the "people who know something" can vote, now you've over-represented a sample of your population.

The only way to be sure that elections have the maximum benefit for everyone is to ensure everyone votes. Allowing people to not vote is not a benefit -- even if you argue that they're votes are not helpful.

And ultimately, in Australia you are allowed (through a legal loophole) to submit invalid votes -- a vote that doesn't count toward any party. The only thing that is mandatory is that you show up. Everyone knows about invalid (donkey) votes, so if someone really wanted to abstain they have an avenue for it.

[hodgesrm]

Why is it a joke? It's been around for a couple of hundred years so it can't be that terrible.

Also, it helps avoid the problem of settling close elections--we saw that in Florida in 2000. Without the electoral college the Florida mess would conceivably extend over all 50 states any time there is a close contest.

[cyphar]

> It's been around for a couple of hundred years so it can't be that terrible.

Heh. If only everything that is old was good. The all-or-nothing electoral college system:

1. Removes power from all people, because they vote for electors not for the actual candidates.

2. Removes representation of people in both swing and predetermined states, because they don't get represented by their elector (all electors have to vote for the same party, not according to the fraction of their state that voted for party X). However, in a weird twist, not all states require that electors vote for the candidate the state told them to vote for -- meaning that they have insane amounts of power.

3. The way electors are assigned actually means that small states have more voting power than large states -- meaning that you can effectively become president if you can get the right 22% of the USA to vote for you.

Oh, and please note that the electoral college system came about because the founding fathers thought you (the commonman) was too dumb to understand how voting should work. So they gave the power of voting to electors.

Here's some videos on the topic:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90RajY2nrgk

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k