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The trick is that American ballots bombard their voters with dozens of questions and dozens of options. Judges, ballot initiatives, various functionaries, etc,
by Pxtl 6y ago
The trick is that American ballots bombard their voters with dozens of questions and dozens of options. Judges, ballot initiatives, various functionaries, etc, which makes hand counted paper ballots impractical.
In parliamentary systems, you elect people so they can vote on those matters for you.
- colejohnson66 6y ago> In parliamentary systems, you elect people so they can vote on those matters for you. Same in America too. Hence, representative democracy. It’s why we have Congress: to vote for us. The problem is that the citizens feel left out in certain issues, so instead of replacing the politician, they make propositions a thing. Boom! Now you have 5+ more things to vote for. Add in county and local governments, and it gets to be 20+ things long.
- pdonis 6y agoThe extra items in the US are virtually always at the state and local level, where quite often state constitutions or local laws require certain items, such as bond issues to fund development, to be voted on directly. I personally don't have a problem with this, but then I think the powers of governments in general, at all levels, should be much more limited than they currently are.
- rwmj 6y agoThe solution to this (also one which is used in the UK) is to put these other votes on different pieces of paper. That way you can count the presidential election first and leave the local initiatives to a bit later, or however you'd prefer to prioritize the results.