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[ed boy]

Also, ed boy - your system seems built to incentive people to lie their asses off completely, and to be completely unaccountable for their actions. It also doesn't seem to have any reward for actually performing their job well in way way. What are your controls for this?

Because if someone gets a position of importance and screws things up completely, then they can get any subsequent applications turned down in the first stage of voting. Once the second stage is complete then there's no need for secrecy any more, so the pseudonyms can be made public, so if someone is failing to live up to their promises it can be known easily.

[XXSockXX]

In most systems, it's usually "Government" versus "Opposition" with the names switching occassionally, from what I understand - almost all of the systems with multiple parties in parliament have a system where the "majority party" has all off the power, and party loyalty is simply assumed - effectively leading to the exact same situation as in the US, where you've got a variety of people under one banner or the other. At least, this is the way it works in most of the countries I've been to - you may be voting for the Greens, but you also know who you're REALLY voting for by doing so, and there's ultimately two "big parties" that actual control of the government takes turns switching between, with the smaller parties having almost no say. Am I wrong in that assessment? It may just be incorrect for any of a variety of countries I haven't been to.

You are partially right, but there is a lot of variety between countries. Some may even not have the two big parties, just a bunch of medium ones.
In Germany, the smaller parties get a lot of say, as a price for making a coalition. There are traditional blocks (christian democrats + liberals vs social democrats + greens), but other variations are possible and have historically happened. Also sometimes a "grand coalition" between the 2 big parties has been necessary.
The small parties are the kingmakers if you will, in a coalition they actually get a disproportionally large influence, usually in the sectors they're focused on (environmental and social issues in the case of the greens, economy and civil rights for the liberals).
This is somewhat similiar in other countries. It becomes problematic if you haven't got a threshold, thus ending up with 10 parties of which 6 are needed for a coalition. This usually doesn't last very long.

[Grek]

How about a much more simple plan:

Every ten years, after the census is taken, the country is divided evenly into 500 precincts of equal population. Every even numbered year, a nominee is selected for each precinct via sortition and is summoned before the court to be confirmed to meet the requirements of office and to either formally accept or reject the nomination. If they reject the nomination (or are legally disqualified) a new name is drawn. If they accept, a popular vote is held between the current incumbent and the new nominee. If there is no incumbent (due to resignation, death or it simply being the first election for the precinct) two names are selected via sortition for the voter's consideration. The winner of this election becomes that precinct's representative to parliament.

Equal access to the resources provided by the Elections Bureau are granted to both nominees. Independent funding, advertising and electioneering is not permitted. Televised speeches are required from both candidates each Friday during the six week election period with the incumbent giving the first speech on odd numbered weeks and the second speech on even numbered weeks. Likewise, a televised debate is required every Saturday between the two candidates.

The nation's Prime Minister is elected for a term of six years through a plurality vote by parliament. Legislation is enacted by a majority vote by parliament and executed by the Prime Minister and his appointees.

[Strife26]

Can newspapers talk about the election? Can I mention who I thought gave the better speech at the water cooler?

[Grek]

Only in editorials and yes, respectively.

[XXSockXX]

Every ten years, after the census is taken....

Here's your first practical problem. We just had a census, the first since 1987, and the wave of lawsuits has just started. (Because if the data is correct, some communities will get lesser benefits etc.) These things are really difficult to do accurately in practice. They basically just questioned houseowners and a random sample of the population (~15% I think). Also despite mandatory registration and overall strict bureaucracy, we apparently have 1,5 million people less than we thought...

[Grek]

Which country is that? The last US Census was in 2010 and specifically asks every about single citizen.

[XXSockXX]

Germany, in the context of the EU 2011 census. Don't know why they used that methodology, apparently it was considered "easier", however it's not as accurate and now there is controversy over the results.

[Grek]

Well, asking 15% of people is probably cheaper than asking 100% of people.

[werty892]

Here's a impossible one that's actually the best.(That was a opinion, not a fact. I have to state that because people will argue Q_Q)

Actual Communism!

[GlyphGryph]

Nah, the incentives don't line up properly. Those dudes who came up with it really should have sat down and worked things through.

[10ebbor10]

In Germany, which is somewhere in the middle on the number of (relevant) parties, with 2 big ones and 3 small ones (plus 2-3 very small ones that have a shot at getting into parliaments), the voting system is 50:50 proportional vs single winner. The small parties don't get most of their votes through direct candidates, but through the proportional second vote.

In most systems, it's usually "Government" versus "Opposition" with the names switching occassionally, from what I understand - almost all of the systems with multiple parties in parliament have a system where the "majority party" has all off the power, and party loyalty is simply assumed - effectively leading to the exact same situation as in the US, where you've got a variety of people under one banner or the other. At least, this is the way it works in most of the countries I've been to - you may be voting for the Greens, but you also know who you're REALLY voting for by doing so, and there's ultimately two "big parties" that actual control of the government takes turns switching between, with the smaller parties having almost no say. Am I wrong in that assessment? It may just be incorrect for any of a variety of countries I haven't been to.

It depends on the political situation, but if there's one flaw with the coalition system is that it often gives disproportionate power to smaller parties, rather than larger parties. And well, it's quite possible for the major parties to change. The best benefit is that you can get a split in a party, without that it automatically empowers the other party.
It's not perfect, but

The problem with belgium as an example is that it seems ot have made it blazingly obvious how badly the system works when attempting to support more than two parties. At least that's what the news makes it seem like... On the other hand, Belgium still seems to be getting along despite all its "problems", as mentioned, so maybe I'm wrong.

The recent troubles were mostly because there were some important constitutional amendments that needed to be done, mostly involving the division of BHV.* And the rise of a  semi separatist party, which nobody else wanted in power, resulting in a Cordon-Sanitaire, severly limiting the amount of possible coalitions. (and IIRC, resulting in a 6 party coalition)

The primary problem with the Belgian system is that it's engineered to prevent the repression of a minority by a majority, which makes it very easy for people to block any decisions from being made. (Not much a problem, thanks to having several levels of government). This is further aggravated by the langue split that divides our country. The haphazard way in which the system is build might not help either. (We got a bicameral party system )

Fun side effect is that political parties are strongly associated with colors, resulting in the rainbow coalition, olive tree coalition, and some others.

*Really, we had so much of these reforms that we're running out of names for them. I mean, the last one is the Butterfly Reform. (Littteraly translated as the Bowtie reform) because of it

[DJ]

Feudalism. A lord has more incentive to treat his serfs well than does a CEO to treat his employees well, since employees are a lot more expendable than serfs.

[misko27]

Here's a impossible one that's actually the best.(That was a opinion, not a fact. I have to state that because people will argue Q_Q)

Actual Communism!

Nah, Communism has Democracy's problem amplified, idiots ruin it.

Feudalism. A lord has more incentive to treat his serfs well than does a CEO to treat his employees well, since employees are a lot more expendable than serfs.

That's a new one.

[GreatJustice]

Well the most obvious problem with Democracy is the issue of dispersed costs vs concentrated benefits. Each politician, naturally, wants to have a very reliable voting bloc in their pocket, and even more they want a reliable voting group that will actually work hard to get them elected. They could try to promote policies that actually benefit the country in some way, get recognition for it, and gain popularity in that way, but that's far too complicated for most politicians. The far easier route is to propose a bunch of specific subsidies, tariffs, etc for the benefit of a few small groups, who will in turn be completely vested in supporting them. All of these policies basically hurt the nation and the taxpayer at the end of the day, and the country would benefit hugely from scrapping most of them, but no one is willing to cut each individual policy because the cost to the individual voter can be measured in pennies but the cost to the beneficiary could be measured in tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's why you have such ridiculous things in the US as corn subsidies and sugar tariffs, which led to the use of cheap corn syrup in soft drinks, which led to American politicians railing against obesity caused by unhealthy corn syrup in soft drinks that they caused by voting for corn subsidies.

Just for reference, I'd say the best form of "government" is market anarchy, so there's that.