IT is your 2 party system and voluntary voting that is the basis of that
The blue undies wearers have to hate the red undies wearers so they will get off their butts & Vote
And of course the same happen with the other side
IF the people are too busy fighting with each other they do not notice when they are being robbed blind
And the requirement for 1/2 billion every couple of years means the government will always be in the pockets of big business.
That is why I get 12 months warranty on the parts I buy from Rotary , Orgon , Prime LIne & Stens where s you smucks just get 1 to 3 months on the exact same parts .
This is why my hernia operation cost me $ 800 and that was 3 visits to the surgeons rooms
The operation + 2 days in hospital cost zip where as you saps have to take out a second mortgage for the same opp.
This is why the most I can ever pay for medicines that are on the PBS is $ 350 / year
This is why there has never ever been a school shooting ( yes criminals still have guns and they always will )
This is why we do not have death duties or inheritance tax
Because we are not preoccupied hating the person next door because his undies are the wrong colour, we can all hate the politicians together
Then we have more than 2 parties a basically labour party, originally fully financed by unions , a weirdly named Liberal party who are a very loose alliance of every one who detests organised labour & want pseudo-slavery introduced . They are in an almost permeant alliance with the farmers party, used to be called Country Party , now the Nationals so they are our conservaties. Then to protect those frogs & flowers we have the Greens , a bunch of very young city living environmental warriors who should be the natural partners of the farmers, but they hate them because they "destroy the land " . so goofy greens usually side with the labour , then for the right wing racists there is the "One ( white ) Nation" For the evangelicals there is a plethora of "christian" parties, some state some federal but of curse being Christians they all hate each other because one book has 3 more pages than the other book and a heap of very minor parties some with 1 or 2 senators others with just 1 lower house member .
So your paralysed parliaments never happen and extreme right or left legislation rarely happens because they always need one of the minor parties to vote for a bill so the minors get small amendments which gives then something t crow about come election time .
An independent group schedule votes so no speaker can defile democracy as Johnston is doing now
Both the government , the opposition & the cross benches can introduce a bill ( restrictions on the number ) then the bill is read for the first time and debated then and there .
Usually a week or so latter it is read a second time with any ammendments then voted on and if passed, goes onto the the Senate for a debate & vote, if ammended it goes back to the house the back to the senate
And the real killer for stable government is preferential voting So you decide who you hate the most and they get the highest number then one you hate slightly less gets one number less to you end up with the person you hate least who gets your number 1 vote .
So when the count is done if the difference between 1 & 2 is less than the sum of the others then the lowest No 1 votes get distributed to the other candidates according to who you gave the number 2 to , And this continues till there is a clear winner so often the person with the most No 1 votes does not get elected and the person who is elected is the one that the least number of people hate .
Then we have absentee voting so on polling day I can vote any where in the nation for a federal election & anywhere in a state for a state or local election .
Postal voting , which by the way always favours Labour ( Dems to you )
Pre poll voting, always favours the Liberals
Normal voting and for my electorate of 120,000 there are 46 polling booths , early voting always favours the libs & late voting always favours labour
So your 2020 vote went exactly the same as any vote in Australia would go
Conservatives in a clear lead with prepolls and early booth returns , around 50:50 for the rest of the day and a strong Labor ( dems ) postal vote
Postal are often not counted on the day if one candidate has an unassailable lead but do get added over the week so some one might win with 55% on the night but by the end of counting be down as low as 51%.
And the real beauty of compulsory voting is there has to be 120,000 votes because there are 120,000 in the electoral district thus idiot claims like 4,000 phantom votes delivered in a wheel barrow can not happen and if the final count is out by more than the winning margin then a recount happens and if tat confirms the descrepency then a frsh ballot ( must be same candidates ) hapens within 1 month
So you can see why we consider our system the stupidist system on the planet and any vote that is voluntary is open to corruption .
Pretty much everything is open to corruption and especially in this day and age. With all that convenience and laziness that promotes it, you increase the greater likelihood.
The two-party system we have... Absolutely is the biggest part of the problem!!
People are sheep though and sheep like to do what they're comfortable doing and afraid of change.
Thus, we can't seem to ever break away from the two-party system and that's what keeps the whole system so screwed up!
I have said for decades that have just once, even on a fluke or a drunk night bet... if a third party or independent could win the presidency, it just might change things forever.
Heck, they probably wouldn't even let it happen. They would find some way and some technicality so that person who won would never actually be sworn into office.
They are corrupt beyond corrupt!
Anyone who isn't corrupt and gets into the business of politics, becomes corrupt quickly or they get out.
Both sides suck in our current situation they just suck in different ways.
Which takes us to the voting.
It's almost always the lesser of two evils and yes, it's almost always about 50/50 with only a few (percentage wise) determining which one will win and represent everyone and who is supposed to work for everyone's benefit but of course about half the country hates them and almost everything they stand for.
The feeling has become quite mutual from the politician's side also.
I'm not a fan of mailing votes or even absentee etc.
I understand they are a number of people but still a very small percentage who just can't get out and go on to a polling penter on election Day but I really think that's the only way it should happen.
Another interesting fact is that we have an abysmal turnout of people who actually vote.
Amazing how much dissent and complaining there is from seemingly everybody when so few people actually vote!!
I guess some people see a statement like this and think since so few vote you need to make it as easy as possible but I've always thought since so few people vote anyways what's a few more that don't vote going to matter.
II've also often thought that it would be easier and probably less likely for fraud versus the scattered way we do it now to do all of our voting electronically.
I mean every single US citizen, because that's the only people that should be voting in the elections) should basically have an account based on their social security number or a new issued voter ID number or whatever way they want to come up with.
But the point is you log in to the system, and place your vote.
Most people would vote from their phone, tablet or computer..
Had they have done this a number of years ago they would have had a phone system also but that's probably not necessary today and the expense would be greater.
Sure, some people will say it would make fraud more likely but they're already using a crazy mixture of electronic and manual and paper things all mixed together so I don't know that it could be much worse.
We in fact, do a pretty good job with accuracy in other aspects which are deemed very important.
Income tax filing and returns comes to mind.
Sure, there are some people who have fictitious filing with their name and or social security numbers or tax ID numbers etc but I think it would be staggering to compare the number of people in the US who file or who have the ability to do an income tax return that someone could fraud on even if they themselves aren't filing that year, versus the few number of people who vote!
Oh well, as I often say it's all about numbers and want something, society, country etc is so grossly gigantic and out of control, you will never fix the problems!!
Fixing the problems is a pipe dream.
There will be attempts and they will be some progress and there will be ups and downs but it's like a Pandora's box situation.
Society, politics, government can only work well and close to perfectly on a very small scale level like an island of a few people, a small group and maybe a village and possibly up to the size of a small town.
After that, it's all downhill. Probably because of one of humans another annoying traits of the compulsive inability to not get along and their own selfishness.
