I'm not from the US, so take this as an outsiders view.
Clinton says different things in public than she does to her friends. She also flip flops. This is not trustworthy.
Trump is unpleasant, but at least he talks straight.
I think this could be the last election of its kind in the USA, a two party system that works to produce these two candidates? Someone (Facebook, google, twitter) will come up with a better way of informing the public how unfair the system is.
How is electoral reform view in the US? In the UK it is very popular and there is often talk of STV or something similar.
[edit]
I am losing valuable imaginary internet points! Oh no! Here, this makes my point better than I can:
Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees
> Clinton says different things in public than she does to her friends. She also flip flops. This is not trustworthy.
> Trump is unpleasant, but at least he talks straight.
You seem to imply that since Trump "talks straight", he doesn't flip-flop?
If that's what you're implying, it couldn't be more inaccurate; he has sharply contradicted himself countless times, straight-up denying things he's documented as saying (on TV, Twitter, etc.)
Clinton talks like a professional politician, Trump says whatever comes to mind at the time. I'm not sure I like how professional politicians talk, but I'm a little nervous that "comes to mind at the time" might lead us into a very bad place.
Yeah - I do. Look at any politician with more than one term of anything under their belt and you're going to find similar problems. I'm voting for Gary Johnson anyhow.. not because I expect him to be more consistent, but because I very much want a viable third party.
Electoral reform is a hot topic, but what people usually mean by it is not a change in how the votes are counted. The most popular issue is campaign financing (with the current arrangement being that there's no practical limit a private party can pour into the elections, so long as they do the Super-PAC dance). Another big issue of concern is gerrymandering. For Democrats, the way their primaries function (superdelegates etc) has been in the spotlight.
As far as voting system itself is concerned, electoral college is the most common issue that is raised, and switching to national popular vote counting is the most common proposal to fix it. There's an ongoing attempt to do this from bottom up, by signing up enough states that they can basically impose this without changing the Constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
Things like STV for presidential elections, or MMP for parliamentary, are mostly under the radar - there are certainly people who are aware of them and push for them, but they're a very small minority, and the public is largely unaware.
Just to give you some sense of how these stack up, the only electoral issue that has been discussed at length in this political campaign by any of the major candidates (including primaries) is campaign finance reform. I haven't heard a peep about electoral college or proportional representation.
Interesting. I work in education in the UK and the way we assess pupils is a relatively complex calculation based on a number of factors.
So schools, teachers, pupils and parents are all aware that attainment is a complex beast and requires an open, yet complex calculation.
Which leads me onto STV and other ways of counting votes, none of these are as simple as first past the post, but these are all far simpler than what we do in our schooling calculation. So I think people are ready to make voting a little more complex and a lot fairer. If we educate them and give them a chance.
I think it's mainly that there are other, more obvious problems to tackle before getting to STV etc. One thing at a time and all that.
Even those things are immensely complicated politically, because they would upset the existing balance between the parties, and in the current climate of extreme partisanship, whichever party is affected is going to pretty much automatically be against it. For example, if we switch from electoral college to national popular vote, it's pretty much guaranteed to give all future presidential elections to the Democrats, at least until GOP has a massive reform. Obviously, they're going to be against it. Similar issues arise with gerrymandering, and even such normally non-controversial issues as making voting easier (increasing registration periods and making the process easier, increasing advanced voting period, mail-in voting etc).
So I wouldn't expect any progress on that front until the present deadlock is broken. On the other hand, whatever new party will arise on the right from the ashes of GOP (or existing third party take over the spot), is likely to be in the minority for a while - and hopefully, that would motivate them to make electoral reform for a more proportional representation a prominent part of their platform. On the other hand, Democrats are likely to get more complacent and corrupt from a long uninterrupted stretch in power, and a few particularly nasty public scandals could be used to prime the voters for an upset election. So we'll get there; it'll just take time.
I think in an era of the populace vehemently hating at least one politician that is running for office (whatever that office may be), and sometimes hating all the candidates a voting system that actively targets least regret should be used; such as condorcet voting, or full preference method.
Clinton says different things in public than she does to her friends. She also flip flops. This is not trustworthy.
Trump is unpleasant, but at least he talks straight.
I think this could be the last election of its kind in the USA, a two party system that works to produce these two candidates? Someone (Facebook, google, twitter) will come up with a better way of informing the public how unfair the system is.
How is electoral reform view in the US? In the UK it is very popular and there is often talk of STV or something similar.
[edit] I am losing valuable imaginary internet points! Oh no! Here, this makes my point better than I can:
Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/01/us/elections/n...