The American elections

I find it rather silly how much discussion there is about the latest American elections that remains virtually fact-free.

Let’s face the most basic facts about the election. It was virtually a dead heat in terms of popular support for the presidency. This was not a stunning victory for Obama but rather a narrow victory in a bitterly divided nation.

The Republicans won the most seats in the House of Representatives despite losing the popular vote for those seats. This is not an endorsement of the Republican agenda so much as a triumph of gerrymandering a flawed system.

The Democrats did win the most votes and most seats in the Senate, electing several openly gay candidates while hardline Republicans went down to defeat. At least here the numbers support the hoopla.

All of this shows the urgent need for the Americans to reform their electoral  system. The people spoke but their political system drowned out their voices.

The Senate elections have two senators from each state, only one of whom is actually elected in any given election year. This makes it difficult to suggest a reform to make it more proportional other than to increase the number of seats per state as Australia does or eliminate it as most democracies have done.

Electing both senators from a given state in the same election would better reflect the voter preferences but would almost always lead to one senator from each party, leading to voting gridlock.

The House of Representatives elections offer more promise. Each representative is elected for a two year term and elections are held every two years. The number of representatives from each state is roughly proportional to its population.

Any system of proportional representation would work better than the current system. In fact, it isn’t even necessary that states all use the same system. Smaller states may prefer a different system than larger ones. More densely populated states may have different preferences than sparsely populated ones.

Proportional representation would put an end to gerrymandering and lead to fairer elections. It would allow third parties to develop giving American voters greater choice. Moderates could cut their extremist elements lose to expand their support in the centre while ideologues could form their own parties so everyone would see just exactly how much support they really have.

However, it is the presidency that really needs to be reformed. Over the last four years, America’s racism has been exposed as white voters overwhelmingly voted for Romney while everyone else voted for Obama. The toxic levels of attacks were an embarrassment to civilization.

Having a single person invested with so much power creates these situations. We also see it to a lesser extent in other winner take all elections. Debates degenerate into personalities because any advantage you can gain over your opponent can make the difference between having power and not having it.

Electing a king, even if you call him a President, is the problem. As I’ve said many times, this is what needs to change.

Many nations use a parliamentary model where the parliament or house of representatives chooses the Prime Minister (usually the head of the largest party) who then picks his cabinet.

A few nations have their parliament elect the cabinet (proportionally) who then choose their chair or president. I prefer this latter system since it shares power among all the parties, forcing them to work together.

Another option is to have the populous elect the cabinet proportionally. This would give all the major factions a stake in making the executive branch of government work. Again, the elected cabinet would then choose their chair.  The ceremonial duties of the president would devolve to whichever cabinet member has jurisdiction in the area.

Politics should be about serving the public good. When it degrades into a blood sport the way it has in the United States, it’s clearly time for a change. I suggest that American politics can be saved but only by structural changes to how it elects its governments.