[SllX]

I can’t speak to Belarus but we have a straight answer in the US: Congress.

Feeding that answer is the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is appointed by the 50 State legislatures and the District of Columbia.

The voters tell them who to select.

In an absolute worst case scenario where the results can’t be certified, we even have a Constitutional fallback: the House elects a President and the Senate elects a Vice President.

For all the noise around what happened in January, the actual lawful process is extremely cut and dry. The former President’s lawyers brought their best legal arguments to bear in jurisdictions across the country, and even the Judges he himself appointed, even the ones that were most forgiving and way more than fair basically laughed them out of the courtroom.

Our election system is solid. It’s messy, it’s debatable, it’s possible to dispute, but it is reliable, lawful and legitimate and we elect the mooks we deserve, not necessarily the ones we would like.

[andrei_says_]

We elect the politicians “we deserve” from a ballot consisting of a selection made by the few thousand richest people in the country - the ones fund the candidates.

https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_...

[SllX]

I’ll just put this out here: if the RNC and DNC reverted to a closed primary in every State for all candidates, not only would I not shed any tears but I would be cautiously optimistic that this would be an improvement in our overall electoral politics because I am not a fan of the various flavors of populists that are beginning to realize power.

Regardless of how we get our nominees though, the quality of our elections and the integrity of the outcome is unquestionable. You’re free to disagree with the qualities of the processes we use, but the process is written down in advance and followed.

[bigbob2]

Not to mention how primary results become conveniently bungled (one party in particular comes to mind) when they favor candidates which are not particularly well liked by the establishment. The fact that the national political committees are private corporations doesn't instill much faith in the fairness of their electoral processes.