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plactagonic @sopuli.xyz

Non US citizens, what's the weirdest thing about USA elections, compared to elections in your country?

For me it is the concept of registering to vote. I am citizen so I have the right to vote automatically and only thing I need to provide is some accepted ID.

103 comments

  • The fucking shows your politicians put on. Like going places and then having some monologue in front of a bunch of people. Not even a debate or something… Weird as fuck to me.

  • The PACs. I think this practice should be considered blatant corruption in any democratic system as it enables large corporations and wealthy individuals to predetermine which candidate or party has even the slightest chance in elections. In my home country, of course, there are private political funds as well but those are not nearly as important in our system as there is solid public funding for political parties based on past election results. I might be wrong but I always thought that the insane amount of private money that fuels US elections boils down to the US being a plutocracy rather than a democracy.

  • Some things come to mind:

    • Each state could theoretically name a different candidate (all that primaries bullshit)
    • No unified federal law for voting for the fucking president; each state has different voting laws
    • Parties have to be registered at a state level and ONLY Rep and Dem exist on all 50. What the fucking fuck
    • Unlimited money spending
    • The fucking electoral college. Winner takes the whole state.
    • Election on tuesday (if i recall, that's a leftover of ye olde times because it's when rural people were more likely to be around cities)

    'muricans somehow insist they are a democracy despite all the hurdles, weird laws and obvious gatekeeping that make it a very shitty republic where votes are NOT equal.

    For comparison, Brazil's elections for president and state governors happen on the same year/day (also for some senators and federal deputies, but let's focus on president). It's direct vote counting, majority (50% + 1) wins. If no candidate gets more than half total votes, the 2 better voted candidates go to a 2nd turn, which happens 4 weeks after the 1st. Election happens on a sunday and there's an electoral tribunal that handles all the logistics across all 27 states.

    Regarding expenditure, it took us a while to stop allowing corporations to finance candidates' campaigns (thanks in no small part to a supreme judge who wanted to keep that legal), the downside is that candidates with rich "friends"/families still have a significant advantage, since direct individual donations are still allowed.

  • Many many things, but one I've not seen touched on much is how LONG the lead up is.

    Here, quite often they announce an election and then a few weeks later we have the election.

    It doesn't really make any sense to drag it out, that's more than enough time to learn about the candidates, the current state of the various parties and their manifestos, and time for debates and discussions and such before polling day.

    The idea that an election run up can go on for months and months and months feels silly/wasteful.

  • The shear length of the campaigns has got to be the weirdest thing for me. But it does make good material for the late night shows.

    We have a checkbox on our income tax forms so registering to vote is very easy.

  • Only two parties.

    The electoral college nonsense (only thing that should matter is the number of votes).

    Voting restrictions (if you are a citizen, you should be able to vote).

    Not making election day a national holiday

  • The entire system is alien to me, with the districts and the electoral college and (...)

    It's so -- Simple -- Here.

    WELL

    At least presidential choice is simple here, the legislative houses are their own beast.

    But yeah here it's just: Each (properly registered, though registration can be done through the internet) adult person gets one vote, if a candidate gets 50%+1 they are in, if none manage to get that there is a run-off round with the top 2 or 3 candidates.

    Over there it's like people from certain states have their votes be worth more than people from other states, and then there's the whole "winning the district" thing and the whole idea of red/blue/swing states. So much complexity.

  • The insistence on electoral districts.

    You get that across the English-speaking world, though. The really weird thing is that even people who see the problem want to keep the districts and argue for non-solutions like ranked-choice voting.

    Centuries ago, it made sense. Communities chose one of their own to argue for their interests in front of the king. Which communities had the privilege? Obviously that's up to the king to decide. Before modern communication tech, it also made sense that communities would be defined by geography.

    Little of that makes sense anymore. When their candidate loses, people don't feel like the 2nd best guy is representing them. They feel disenfranchised.

    It used to be, in the US, that minorities - specifically African Americans - were denied representation. Today, census data is used to draw districts dominated by minority ethnic groups so that they can send one of their own to congress. This might not be a good thing, because candidates elsewhere do not have to appeal to these minorities or take their interests into account. Minorities that are not geographically concentrated - eg LGBTQ - cannot gain representation that way.

    The process is entirely top-down and undemocratic. Of course, it is gamed.

    Aside from that, the mere fact that representation is geography based influences which issues dominate. The more likely you are to move before the next election, the less your interests matter. That goes for both parties. But you can also see a pronounced urban/rural divide in party preference. Rural vs urban determines interests and opinions in very basic ways. Say, guns: High-population density makes them a dangerous threat and not much else. In the country, they are a tool for hunting.

103 comments