Give everybody 100 votes and let them 'spend' their votes where they want. The hardcore Dems could give all 100 to the Democrat on the ticket, likewise for Repubs.

Normal people could split their votes 60-40, 70-30 or whatever. Or even 20-30 and neither of the idiots gets any more.

Then we could really look at intensity. Suppose a candidate won with 5000 voters giving him 200,000 votes, with the loser getting 150,000. We would know that of the 500,000 available votes only 350,000 got spent, showing some considerable disdain for both candidates.

I also think voting procedures should be difficult and complex with the ballots spoiled by the incompetent easily rejected. But that's a whole nuther topic.

Jeff, the two-party system has been with us from practically the beginning, and will be with us as long as the Constitution remains relatively unchanged regarding such matters. Ours is not a parliamentary system. Here, the coalitions are formed before the elections – in most other Representative Republics, those coalitions are formed after the election.

The extreme electoral mood swings that result in Britain (and other nations) nationalizing industries under one Prime Minister, then selling them off under another, then re-nationalizing some of them under the next PM are prevalent in the United States, too, but our system does a better job of keeping those extremes in check, and it was even better in this regard before the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified.

Vidyohs wrote an excellent article on ways to drastically improve representation in our government on a different thread of this blog.

Don't be too hard on yourself, it happens to all of us now and again. Can't tell you the number of gulps I have had to emit when I read my post that was done gone and posted. I was just poking light hearted fun.

Peace be to you.

No, I fully deserve Vidyoh's bitch-slapping of my error.

A political sceince prof, eh? Well sir, you've confused me by your assertion that someone has a "first amendment write". Just where would one find the granting or admission of that write, and how does one go about getting it?

I just did a depo that lasted for four hours and the deponent repeated, to every question, "On the advice of my attorney, I exercise my 5th amendment privilege to remain silent and not answer the question……etc."

After the deposition I asked the deponent's attorney why the deviation in the wording and she had zero clue.

Oh lordy lordy, we have writes and privileges, but no rights?

Whahab de wurl be com'en too?

Voting between two non-entities is a senseless exercise, the None of the Above group has my support. If NOTA wins, scrap the election and start over, as some one said above, with totally new candidates. It may be costly, but less costly than having an idiot in the presidency.