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Originally Posted by Sun Tzu
I was shocked to learn that Russia’s current election process is one direct count of the popular vote. It would appear they are currently more of a democracy that the United States.
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Except that Russian elections aren't exactly free; if they were, then they would be more democratic than ours.
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What is a good argument for continuing to use the present system?
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The only halfway reasonable argument I've heard is that the Electoral College requires a candidate to have a good geographic spread in their votes; once you have >50% of the votes in an area, it makes sense to woo voters elsewhere, thus keeping any part of the country from being chronically ignored. At least in theory.
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As for the count- simplify it with easy to read names on paper. Have three individuals per counting team, one to count- two to verify, and televise the entire process. The current multifaceted system of entry and the count conducted privately behind closed doors by private companies provides too much opportunity for corruptive actions to occur. It would take longer, but money and resources are wasted on worse.
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It would also be good to define what the counting team is counting. There were disputes in the 2000 election about voters' intentions, and whether those intentions could be discerned by their mis-votes. You want to simplify it to reduce mistakes, which is a good idea. However, there will always be some idiot who manages to cast an unclear vote. There needs to be guidelines for dealing with those votes.