As an American who enjoys watching internal coverage of other countries' elections, the Australian system of ranked choice voting has impressed me.
Several jurisdictions in the US have adopted this to varying degrees; perhaps NYC and Alaska stand out the most. It would be nice to adopt this nationally in the US. But this still leaves open the matter of how party nominees are chosen.
Activists denounce attempts by parties to influence who gets nominated by (d'oh!) their own parties as "undemocratic". However the activists are sometimes more fringe and can nominate candidates outside the country's and even party's mainstream.
A problem is that we are simply not talking to each other. Pounding the pavement to do precinct work and talk to neighbors has largely been replaced by pounding keyboards to talk amongst ourselves inside ideological bubbles. Mamdani won in NYC not because he was a socialist but because he had volunteers going from door to door to LISTEN to what voters were saying. That turned out to be a radical and successful concept.
Political parties have a special status under law though they are still technically private organizations. They need to bite the bullet and retain some of the power to influence the nomination of candidates – ones who are representative of most of the party. However this has to be done in such a way that does not discourage new people with fresh ideas from becoming actively involved in party politics. Without new blood, an organization decays.
As an aside, we need to make a year of civics a mandatory course for students somewhere between grades 7 and 10. What usually passes for "civics" currently is a crash course to help students memorize answers for a state-mandated HS multiple guess quiz of around 50 questions. What gets students passing marks on this quiz are rote answers which could be looked up online in 20 to 30 seconds. The kids end up with little understanding of how government and politics actually work at any level. We can't afford to become a nation of civic illiterates.
What then happens to the electoral college? I’d like to see that go very far away.
It goes away!
I voted
Democratic since 1960 (JFK) . Wanted a fighter but rarely got one .Warren and Newsom types instead of Schumer and Co.
Raskin, AOC, Cdockett and Goldman are more to my liking.
As an American who enjoys watching internal coverage of other countries' elections, the Australian system of ranked choice voting has impressed me.
Several jurisdictions in the US have adopted this to varying degrees; perhaps NYC and Alaska stand out the most. It would be nice to adopt this nationally in the US. But this still leaves open the matter of how party nominees are chosen.
Activists denounce attempts by parties to influence who gets nominated by (d'oh!) their own parties as "undemocratic". However the activists are sometimes more fringe and can nominate candidates outside the country's and even party's mainstream.
A problem is that we are simply not talking to each other. Pounding the pavement to do precinct work and talk to neighbors has largely been replaced by pounding keyboards to talk amongst ourselves inside ideological bubbles. Mamdani won in NYC not because he was a socialist but because he had volunteers going from door to door to LISTEN to what voters were saying. That turned out to be a radical and successful concept.
Political parties have a special status under law though they are still technically private organizations. They need to bite the bullet and retain some of the power to influence the nomination of candidates – ones who are representative of most of the party. However this has to be done in such a way that does not discourage new people with fresh ideas from becoming actively involved in party politics. Without new blood, an organization decays.
As an aside, we need to make a year of civics a mandatory course for students somewhere between grades 7 and 10. What usually passes for "civics" currently is a crash course to help students memorize answers for a state-mandated HS multiple guess quiz of around 50 questions. What gets students passing marks on this quiz are rote answers which could be looked up online in 20 to 30 seconds. The kids end up with little understanding of how government and politics actually work at any level. We can't afford to become a nation of civic illiterates.