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[sprinkled chariot]

Your elections are such mystery.

[Orange Wizard]

Your elections are such mystery.

You know the best bit? They haven't even started electing yet. This is all figuring out who they get to choose between in the Real™ elections.

[Amperzand]

'Murica best country.

[Reelya]

Arguably this bit, the informal "let's get rid of anyone you'd remotely like to vote for" bit , is the critical part.

[SquatchHammer]

Your elections are such mystery.

No, no. They are not that confusing. It's really simple if you look at them. Who ever spins the best bullshit wins. It was only Bush Jr. that made it bad.

[Orange Wizard]

Who ever spins the best bullshit wins.

That's the same for every election. It's just that the American system makes the process of winning unimaginably complicated.

[Urist Imiknorris]

And expensive.

[sprinkled chariot]

You have special guys, who vote for you and can go lolno and elect Trump, despite being elected to vote anyone but just not Trump.
That is mysterious.

[mainiac]

Well yeah but that's about as likely as the queen of England dismissing Parliament and demanding a prime minister who will raise the taxes she needs to invade France.

[Orange Wizard]

Except the Queen doesn't actually have the legal power to do that in the first place

[smjjames]

Except the Queen doesn't actually have the legal power to do that in the first place

Exactly.

[Culise]

Except the Queen doesn't actually have the legal power to do that in the first place

To be fair, that's only been true since 2011 and the Fixed-terms Parliament Act, so mainiac may not simply have kept up with recent events on the particular minutae of the relationship between the Crown and Parliament.  That said, they still have the power to prorogue it, and I'm not sure there's any (legal) limit there. 

But indeed, if he's talking about electors and not delegates, many states do have laws to punish or prevent faithless electors. 

[mainiac]

Man why did they have to change the interesting obscure laws?  Couldn't they have ditched the boring obscure ones?

[i2amroy]

You have special guys, who vote for you and can go lolno and elect Trump, despite being elected to vote anyone but just not Trump.
That is mysterious.

Blame it on the fact that the core election system is essentially still the one that we used to elect the very first presidents back in the early 1800's, and at the time a large portion of southern states didn't want to vote for a popular vote because that would mean giving black people votes for president rather than maintaining the power in a group chosen "in such manner as its Legislature ([which was 100% white]) may direct". A couple of the original delegates writing the constitution even wanted to go with the popular vote idea but determined that it would be nigh impossible to get a popular consensus on it due to the slavery issue:

There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.

[Geltor]

The benefit of the two party system is that it requires the parties to be broad, flexible coalitions of interests and opinions. I know that everyone loves blaming it for all the evils of the world, but it hasn't brought down the experiment yet.

I think that a parlimentary system does that more effectively.  The need to have a ruling coalition will make political party leaders join coalitions.  And we see some pretty broad coalitions when needed, like the governments in Greece and Ukraine.  While it's possible that politicians will form coalitions the voters dont want, the voters can punish the leaders for that like with the British liberals getting shreded after they entered a poorly conceived coalition with the conservatives.

while parliamentary elections are not perfect, i think its the best democracy has right now. all you have to do is show up in a polling station near you, cast your ballot and leave--at that moment youre officially done with the election process.

the horror stories i hear about people standing in line for HOURS just so that their candidate MIGHT get the chance to actually run in the REAL elections is terrifying. i imagine that if the current elections were ran parliamentary-like, sanders would probably win by a landslide what with all the hanging independents/republicans that would not have to go through any process to switch sides. theres no wonder turnout is so low. honestly, if i had to bother myself with things like registration to my favorable party i wouldnt bother to vote at all.