The point I was making was not that you suggested a parliamentary system instead - I was addressing the point of the US being less democratic. Neither the US nor many other western, first world countries elect their head of government by popular vote directly. The US uses a State-by-State vote - technically the States are the persons voting for the President, as entities. That's why there are winner take all states where a state has X electoral votes and they go to the winner of that state.JimC wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:02 amThat really hasn't addressed any of my points. You could still have a separately elected president by popular vote, plus your congress/senate arrangement - nowhere did I suggest a parliamentary system instead. The key points would be:Forty Two wrote: ↑Mon Oct 08, 2018 9:29 pmIf the US elected its head of government as in a parliamentary system, then he or she would be elected by the party(or coalition) that wins the most seats in the House of Representatives (chosen from the representatives). So, in 1994, for example, when the Republicans won the most seats in Congress, Newt Gingrich (then "leader" of the GOP) would have been President instead of Speaker of the House. Clinton wouldn't have been President.JimC wrote: ↑Sat Oct 06, 2018 3:42 amDemocracy is not an all or nothing situation. I am comfortable saying that the US is a democracy in the general sense, with major flaws that diminish the general principle of voting equality, whether they spring from partisan gerrymandering, deliberate efforts to stop certain sectors voting or an electoral college with its clear failure to allow majority rule. Other western democracies are also flawed, but not to the same extent.
Similarly, in 2008, the Repubs won the House of Representatives - John Boehner was the leader of the GOP at the time, so he was made Speaker of the House. However, if a parliamentary system was used, then he would have been Prime Minister (head of government), and Obama would not have been in that position.
In 1984, the Democrats won the lion's share of the House (parliament) seats while Reagan won the Presidency. Would it have been more democratic or less democratic for Tip O'Neill (then Speaker of the HOuse) to be President?
Would that be more or less of a democratic way to elect heads of government?
I submit that it's a different way to elect them. Neither way represents the will of the people as to the specific person who is ultimately chosen. It's a balance of interests.
* altering your electoral college arrangements so that it would be impossible for a president to win with fewer votes than his or her opponent
* having a totally independent electoral commission to alter all electoral boundaries, state or federal, so as to eliminate gerrymandering, and to get as close to a "one person, one vote value" as possible; no more blatant partisan decisions
* the same commission could work out a better way to ensure there are no systematic barriers to voter registration
* and finally (impossible, I fear me) make voting compulsory
Similarly, if you have a parliamentary system, you can have one party have disproporationately more seats in Parliament than is represented by their share of the population. That can happen where one district is, like, 90% for party X, but three other districts are 51% to party Y. So, Party Y can get three seats in Parliament to X's 1, and then Party Y elects the prime minister. If there were 1,000,000 people in the district party X won, and 333,333 each in the district party Y won, then party Y would be picking the prime minister even though they got fewer votes.
There was prediction in the UK that the "wrong winner" scenario could have Conservative Tories with more seats in Parliament while getting fewer votes. It happened in 1974 in the reverse with a hung Parliament and the Labour Party got more seats than the Tories with fewer votes.
So, is that more democratic, or less democratic than the US?
I'm not criticizing the Brit system - I'm illustrating that all of these systems have some aspects that are not 100% democratic. And, that's o.k. In the US, our Congress is directly elected - one person, one vote. The President, though, not - he's indirectly elected by the States.
It's accurate to say that it's not 100% democratic in that he is not elected by a pure majority of the popular vote. But, pure majority of the popular vote is not the only way to democratically elect a head of government. In the US, one of the functions of the electoral college is to afford a bit of a nod toward smaller, less populous states, so that the country is not simply ruled by three or four population centers. Each state gets 2 electoral votes for being a state, and then a proportionate share of electoral votes based on population. 100 Electoral votes (for the Senate - 2 Senators) - and 435 Electoral votes for the House (there are 435 representatives in the House). Washington DC gets 3 Electors. Total - 538. All the interests are represented.
The effect of an electoral college is that it encourages candidates to take the interests of lesser populated states to heart, because instead of the equivalent of 1 vote for, say, Wyoming (less than 1, actually if it was by pure population), Wyoming gets 3. There are a lot of lower population states, and a purely popular vote election for the President would mean winner of the major cities would win the Presidency every time.