4 ms·

US citizens have the ability to express their opinion on him through votes. That said, I am not sure the alternative would be much better. I believe the America

by Zirro 13y ago

US citizens have the ability to express their opinion on him through votes. That said, I am not sure the alternative would be much better. I believe the American people would benefit greatly from having more than two viable alternatives when they vote, as the two current alternatives have similar opinions in many questions.

jessriedel 13y ago
He's term limited. He can't run again.
aylons 13y ago
The only way this could happen is if US voting system for presidency changed to a direct, 2-turn election. This way, someone could vote for a third option knowing that it won't help the opposing party.
- tankenmate 13y ago
  Actually what you need is proportional representation. First past the post almost guarantees that people will vote for whoever they think will "stick it" to the party they don't like; i.e. a two party system is inevitable.
  - baddox 13y ago
    You can't really have proportional representation for the role of President, unless you want to split up the roles (head of state, commander in chief, chief executive, etc.).
    - rjsw 13y ago
      You can have multiple voting rounds, France does this.
      - baddox 13y ago
        But that's just another election system with different attributes of subjective value. Any choice of election system is just a compromise between many desirable criteria, some of which are mutually exclusive. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_selected_systems_.28table.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_sel....
      - mkr-hn 13y ago
        Perhaps a primary election where the parties select between a gaggle of variously qualified candidates with a nationwide vote? Sounds like a great idea. The hard part would be getting voters to participate in it since it would be about as interesting as lower level (state/county/city) elections, which have abysmal turnout.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > You can't really have proportional representation for the role of President American voters don't elect the President, anyway, they elect Presidential electors; if you had more proportional (compared to FPTP single member districts) representation for the Congress [1], and PR within each states slate of electors for the Electoral College (for the EC, party-list proportional could work rather than candidate-centered), and then change the rules for the EC so that the whole EC meets physically and has a set time to elect a President and VP by majority otherwise those elections fall to the House and Senate, you'd neatly solve the problem of duopoly. [1] Without abandoning candidate-centered elections and equal representation in the Senate, my preferred method of doing this for the Congress would be to add senators so that each state had 3 instead of 2, elect a slate of 3 Senators from each State every 6 years using Single Transferrable Vote, and also elect the House by STV every 2 years, dividing states up into House districts as follows: If a state has 1-5 seats in the House, it has one district; If a state 6 or more seats in the House, it is divided as evenly as possible in to districts of not less than 3 and not more than 5 members.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > The only way this could happen is if US voting system for presidency changed to a direct, 2-turn election. If by 2-turn you mean majority-runoff, that still has perverse incentives against voting for other than the more preferred major party candidate, though slightly less so than does plurality.
  - aylons 13y ago
    > If by 2-turn you mean majority-runoff, that still has perverse incentives against voting for other than the more preferred major party candidate, though slightly less so than does plurality. Highly less, I would say. When the two most voted candidates go to the second round, you may vote for a third candidate knowing that, in case this preferred one fails, there is still the chance to vote against the one you hate more in the second round. In a single-run voting, people are more compelled to vote against the candidate the hate more, instead of voting for the one they like more.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Highly less, I would say. Not really. Its not like majority-runoff isn't a commonly used (in the US, even), highly studied election method, known to have very similar effects in terms of reinforcing duopoly to plurality.
jasonkolb 13y ago
I've long thought this as well. I think breaking up the cable monopoly and making large news sources compete against smaller independent ones is the only thing that will break the republicrat death grip on power. The debates have to not matter anymore.
baddox 13y ago
The difference between a voter's influence and a non-citizen's influence is negligible.

by Zirro 13y ago

jessriedel 13y ago

He's term limited. He can't run again.

aylons 13y ago

The only way this could happen is if US voting system for presidency changed to a direct, 2-turn election. This way, someone could vote for a third option knowing that it won't help the opposing party.

tankenmate 13y ago
Actually what you need is proportional representation. First past the post almost guarantees that people will vote for whoever they think will "stick it" to the party they don't like; i.e. a two party system is inevitable.
- baddox 13y ago
  You can't really have proportional representation for the role of President, unless you want to split up the roles (head of state, commander in chief, chief executive, etc.).
  - rjsw 13y ago
    You can have multiple voting rounds, France does this.
    - baddox 13y ago
      But that's just another election system with different attributes of subjective value. Any choice of election system is just a compromise between many desirable criteria, some of which are mutually exclusive. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_selected_systems_.28table.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_sel....
    - mkr-hn 13y ago
      Perhaps a primary election where the parties select between a gaggle of variously qualified candidates with a nationwide vote? Sounds like a great idea. The hard part would be getting voters to participate in it since it would be about as interesting as lower level (state/county/city) elections, which have abysmal turnout.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > You can't really have proportional representation for the role of President American voters don't elect the President, anyway, they elect Presidential electors; if you had more proportional (compared to FPTP single member districts) representation for the Congress [1], and PR within each states slate of electors for the Electoral College (for the EC, party-list proportional could work rather than candidate-centered), and then change the rules for the EC so that the whole EC meets physically and has a set time to elect a President and VP by majority otherwise those elections fall to the House and Senate, you'd neatly solve the problem of duopoly. [1] Without abandoning candidate-centered elections and equal representation in the Senate, my preferred method of doing this for the Congress would be to add senators so that each state had 3 instead of 2, elect a slate of 3 Senators from each State every 6 years using Single Transferrable Vote, and also elect the House by STV every 2 years, dividing states up into House districts as follows: If a state has 1-5 seats in the House, it has one district; If a state 6 or more seats in the House, it is divided as evenly as possible in to districts of not less than 3 and not more than 5 members.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> The only way this could happen is if US voting system for presidency changed to a direct, 2-turn election. If by 2-turn you mean majority-runoff, that still has perverse incentives against voting for other than the more preferred major party candidate, though slightly less so than does plurality.
- aylons 13y ago
  > If by 2-turn you mean majority-runoff, that still has perverse incentives against voting for other than the more preferred major party candidate, though slightly less so than does plurality. Highly less, I would say. When the two most voted candidates go to the second round, you may vote for a third candidate knowing that, in case this preferred one fails, there is still the chance to vote against the one you hate more in the second round. In a single-run voting, people are more compelled to vote against the candidate the hate more, instead of voting for the one they like more.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Highly less, I would say. Not really. Its not like majority-runoff isn't a commonly used (in the US, even), highly studied election method, known to have very similar effects in terms of reinforcing duopoly to plurality.

jasonkolb 13y ago

I've long thought this as well. I think breaking up the cable monopoly and making large news sources compete against smaller independent ones is the only thing that will break the republicrat death grip on power. The debates have to not matter anymore.

baddox 13y ago

The difference between a voter's influence and a non-citizen's influence is negligible.