Ask Lemmy

The weirdest thing, the thing that I have the hardest time understanding, is how many people vote for Trump. There was just a survey here in Denmark asking how many would vote for Trump. It was 8%. That number I still find a bit high but I can understand it a little bit. 8% of people voting for something very harmful seems almost inevitable I guess. Some people just aren't educated or informed enough.

But the fact that close to 50% of americans choose to vote for Trump, and that in some states, it is even more than 50% - that I don't think I will ever understand. That is madness.

the money!

The fucking shows your politicians put on. Like going places and then having some monologue in front of a bunch of people. Not even a debate or something… Weird as fuck to me.

Everything being voted on at once even if it means that the States have control over the federal elections, that's weird as fuck to me... In Canada provinces handle their elections, cities handle their elections (although they might all have to hold them on the same day depending on provincial laws), the federal government handles its own elections.

Numbers starting coming out before all polling stations are closed is also stupid.

If nobody reaches 270 electoral votes, rather than having a second round, the congress decides who wins. FPTP in general. And that most states would give all electoral votes to a candidate with 51% of the vote.

Gerrymandering. i dont know a second democracy where such a blatant version of voter suppression is allowed.

The PACs. I think this practice should be considered blatant corruption in any democratic system as it enables large corporations and wealthy individuals to predetermine which candidate or party has even the slightest chance in elections. In my home country, of course, there are private political funds as well but those are not nearly as important in our system as there is solid public funding for political parties based on past election results. I might be wrong but I always thought that the insane amount of private money that fuels US elections boils down to the US being a plutocracy rather than a democracy.

No voter ID is super weird to me as a Canadian.

I wouldn't know where to start. Maybe the electoral college and that nobody updated this in centuries. Makes it borderline undemocratic IMO. Especially the winner-takes-it-all formula that makes you have exactly 2 parties, with none of them really incentivised to do what the citizens want. At least on a national level. And the people can choose to either vote for one of them, whether they like them or not, or throw away their vote.

And the next thing are maybe the people themselves. I can't imagine how half a population would like a convicted criminal, who'd like to make everything more expensive for them and doesn't like democracy (which is kinda something the USA is proud of, historically) and would like to get rid of it. Which is completely detrimental to how and why the entire country was founded. And I mean you kind of have to be a racist yourself to like other fascists/racists? Or have some pretty severe issues in your life. I can imagine like 20-30% of racists around, or people who've been fooled by some charismatic character. But not half.

That campaigning starts over a year in advance... then you don't even have a switchover for two months.

Electoral college is fucking weird

That you disallow prisoners to vote, but a felon can run as a candidate

That you end up in situation where there are hours long lines and you don't have one station per, say, 1000 people at most

Registering to vote is weird, but that is i understand mostly a consequence of not having countrywide ID standard. In my country you're automatically registered where you live, and IDs are free of charge and mandatory to have (not driving license or passport. there are fees for these)

Election isn't on weekend, there's zero reason why it couldn't be or it could be made national holiday. There was even free public transit for election day in my city, but that one was paid by the city

That some of people (republicans) seem to be into politics in the same way ultras seem to be into football, it's still fucked up but i've seen it in other places so it's not that weird by now

The entire process of the electoral college makes no sense at all. The only thing it accomplishes is making some peoples votes better than others. Which is so fucked up if you think about it.

That one party (the Republicans, just to be clear about that) tries to invalidate votes and tries to make voting as hard as possible AND THEN gets away with it.

That for the last 8 years one party keeps nominating a criminal who keeps admitting that he wants to fuck the country into the dirt. And people still vote for him. Every country has its idiots, but they usually are in the 5%-10% range. In the US it's almost 50% of the voters. That is remarkable.

Oh, and the two party system sucks, too. They are not the same, fuck everyone who says they are. But it still does suck.

The way people get so emotionally invested into it.

• FPTP voting system

• Voting isn't compulsory so a lot depends upon on riling up your base

• Voting is on a Tuesday instead of a weekend (or a public holiday)

• Political parties draw up the electoral boundaries instead of an independent body

• The absurdly long leadup to an election

• The amount of money thrown around