Can we please restructure how we do elections already, ffs

it would be nice, as would just getting rid of ALL political parties like George Washington wanted

1) Institute preferential voting 2) chuck the electoral college in a bin

I doubt we can get rid of all political parties, but a fall-back plan of making more than one party goddamned viable works too as far as I'm concerned.

another thing would be to institute term limits for all elected offices, so that people can't be professional politcians

Blackfocker that last suggestion might have more merit if we literally hadn't just got saddled with a fucking FAILED TRUSTFUNDIE who WASN'T a politician this election cycle.

Career politicians have their own problems but at least they get fucking familiar with the laws and intricacies of legislature.

very true, but I'm just putting up pipedreams that would make our political system better and fairer

I mean, I definitely do think that there should be term limits on national congresspeople, but like: yeah that wouldn't've done shit this time around.

Would that be a lifetime term limit or an in-a-row term limit?

Ooh, there's an interesting question. Possibly a number of terms within a certain amount of time? I'm not sure.

I think the Canadian system of being able to call for an election to be held early would be better than term limits.

also I agree with Alterz on that one-two combo up there.

I would definitely not want to limit local level offices, though, like I'm just talking the national level.

I would say lifetime term limit for each given position. So someone could go from house rep to senator and so on, but could not go back and repeat a position that they already held

Hasn't Canada had issues with opposition people just calling an election if someone sneezes the wrong way, though?

I feel like that potentially bogs us down the way that endless appeals bog down the judicial system.

I don't think higher levels of gov should impose term limits on smaller ones, but I think term limits would be helpful in, say, a mob town.

I would say term limits for governor and national positions only (or special cases as determined by the local government)

I also feel that it should be a different number of terms for each position, like say 2 for Senators and maybe 4 for House reps

You're not wrong about the mob town thing but the problem is that there's no way to judge what "a mob town" is and make rules specifically for that, so you'd have to have a blanket limit,

and in that case there's less people at the local level who actually want to do the political logistical shit and also people do actually need a way

to build up and gain the sort of experience that you'd actually want in a higher level candidate.

that would allow for people to be able to make the needed connections for actually getting shit done

Canada has probably had issues with that, just like they've had issues with the PM being just being the pre-existing leader of the party-with-the-most-seats thing, but as demonstrated, we've got troubles too.

If the President is limited to 8 years, I think that should be the same for congresspeople.

I think the President might actually just be limited to two terms in a row? lemme check

Mostly I bring up that specific Canadian issue because I can't imagine that, the political climate in this country being what it is, it wouldn't end in us having to have an election about once a week

and I don't think any of us want to live in a world where that's the case.

I'm 90% certain it's two terms end sentence for the Prez.

You are correct; National Constitution Center

Canada also has a limit on HOW early it can be called, and I think if it's staggered, like after the initial wait certain conditions have to be met? It's been a long time since I took that class.

another way would be for the limit to be 12 years in each position, 6 terms in the house, 2 in the senate, and 3 as president

My problem is that the president was limited to two terms because "we don't want a dictatorship" despite FDR being incredibly popular, like there's a reason he won four times,

but then we end up with the same people in congress for god damn life and they restructure things to let themselves get reelected over and over which is, uh,

the exact thing we were trying to avoid with the president.

which is why I say that term limits are needed\

I'm wary of lifetime term limits for the senate, but could be in favor of in-a-row term limits? Like you've had two/three/whatever terms, you gotta sit the next one out, try again next time if you really want.

See, I'm wary of that ending up with like... two people from the same party trading off back and forth because jerrymandering that currently keeps one of them in office would just keep them both in office?

Whereas I'm wary of losing dedicated professionals like Patty Murray etc. But I agree that gerrymandering fucking sucks.

it's a double edged sword, either way it will suck in some manner

Now I'm curious about how the preferential voting thing and the gerrymandering we get over here would interact.

Okay I clearly need to add to my list from before: 3) impose a maximum perimeter:area ratio for voting districts.

That way they can still be divided up by population size, but you can't get these long squiggly shapes that isolate and break up communities.

that sounds good

simple shapes unless running along an easily identifiable and definable natural border (like mountains or rivers)

but the shape must still have a majority of simple straight line borders

In theory the ratio limit would force that but I can see putting a limit on how many sides the shape can have.

true