A lot of stuff in the U.S. is like an early draft of democracy that never got changed.
Whoever gets the most votes wins (aka “first past the post”), but if there are more than two people running, it’s very common for the winner to have less than a majority of the public supporting them. It’s why we don’t see much in the way of third parties.
Instead we have primaries, which are just elections for members of a specific political party, but which have much lower participation than the general election. These are also “first past the post” elections, so as a result we end up with a lot of candidates that people aren’t happy with, but you have to vote for the lesser evil.
The house of representatives is vulnerable to gerrymandering, especially because each state draws it’s own districts by it’s own rules.
The Senate is unfair as written in the constitution - each state gets two senators, regardless of population. So a state like Wyoming or Montana gets two senators while they have a lower population than individual cities like New York or Los Angeles. It’s one big reason why we can’t get any popular laws passed.
Ideally I’d love to see the president elected by ranked choice voting, the Senate eliminated, and the house of representatives elected by single transferrable vote. But we’re so far from that it’s science fiction.
A lot of stuff in the U.S. is like an early draft of democracy that never got changed.
Whoever gets the most votes wins (aka “first past the post”), but if there are more than two people running, it’s very common for the winner to have less than a majority of the public supporting them. It’s why we don’t see much in the way of third parties.
Instead we have primaries, which are just elections for members of a specific political party, but which have much lower participation than the general election. These are also “first past the post” elections, so as a result we end up with a lot of candidates that people aren’t happy with, but you have to vote for the lesser evil.
The house of representatives is vulnerable to gerrymandering, especially because each state draws it’s own districts by it’s own rules.
The Senate is unfair as written in the constitution - each state gets two senators, regardless of population. So a state like Wyoming or Montana gets two senators while they have a lower population than individual cities like New York or Los Angeles. It’s one big reason why we can’t get any popular laws passed.
Ideally I’d love to see the president elected by ranked choice voting, the Senate eliminated, and the house of representatives elected by single transferrable vote. But we’re so far from that it’s science fiction.