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The candidates have spent more individually on advertisements than the UK's 3 main political parties spent on the whole general election combined, crazy.
I voted "fairly fair, but flawed". This is why I think it's flawed:
1. Way too much corporate influence through donations. In my country, political parties mostly pay for their campaigns through a national campaign fund. They are far less expensive too. In the US, it is impossible to get elected if you don't receive substantial donations and in order to get those donations, you have to appease the corporations that pay you. In a sense, politicians can be "bought" this way.
2. There are only two political parties. There is not enough choice between diverse ideologies. What about fiscal conservatives who are socially liberal and vice versa? Plus, contrary to what many Republicans believe, there is no real left-wing party in the US. In most of the world, the Democrats would be considered right-wing. Anyone who thinks Obama is a "socialist" clearly doesn't have a clue what socialism is about. The truth is that the US is an extremely right-wing country - more than any other place in the world - so even people who are moderately right-wing like the Democrats are accused of being "socialist, Marxist commies".
3. The campaigns take way too long and are way too intrusive. There's no need to be running ads over a year in advance and there's no need to plaster them absolutely everywhere. If I were American, I'd be pretty pissed off if I can't even turn on the TV without some politician telling me whom to vote for every 5 minutes. There should be some rules about this (if there are, they're not strict enough). I guess this is why the campaigns are so expensive.
4. The most disturbing part to me: there is way too much deliberate misinformation being spread by both sides and they constantly get away with it. Why are the media so damn uncritical? How are people supposed to make an informed decision if they can't decide who's telling the truth? Where I'm from, politicians think twice about telling lies because they know they'll get called out on it. In the US, it seems the media are so terrified of being accused of bias that they swapped objectivity for neutrality. It's usually: "Democrat said this, Republican said that, you decide" even though one side is demonstrably wrong.
This is only about the process leading up to the elections. I also believe all votes should be weighted equally and if I understand correctly, that is not the case in the US. It is possible to get the majority of the popular votes and yet not win the elections (isn't that what happened to Al Gore?). This is a serious flaw in the American political system imo.
the disenfranchisement is concerning. It gets worse with each election. The corruption seems to be coming from the republican party ever since 2000 and the Florida fiasco, then the 2004 Ohio Deibold fiasco, and now the issues with the governors of Florida and Ohio dramatically reducing the early voting period. This seems to be done primarily to disenfranchise people of specific demographics that would not predictably benefit the republican party. I think this is why they are called the repugnant party.
the disenfranchisement is concerning. It gets worse with each election. The corruption seems to be coming from the republican party ever since 2000 and the Florida fiasco, then the 2004 Ohio Deibold fiasco, and now the issues with the governors of Florida and Ohio dramatically reducing the early voting period. This seems to be done primarily to disenfranchise people of specific demographics that would not predictably benefit the republican party. I think this is why they are called the repugnant party.
It's anti-democratic. And the problem is, that because of so much voter suppression from the Republican side, no election results can be trusted now. It's like every time there's a presidential election, Congress has to get involved and do an investigation afterwards, just to determine who won. In 2004/5 they determined that Kerry actually had won. So... tomorrow's going to be a nightmare.
The Supreme Court messed up royally by changing the rules and allowing corporate campaign contributions. And LindaG has a very good point. The media seem to have been de-fanged since the Bush Jr. administration. The NY Times has had some good editorials exposing the truth, but it's been too little too late.
It is crazy, but its an almightily important decision for America........ and the entire world.
Obama deserves 4 more years I feel, especially more deserving than Mitt Romney.
Nah ... Obama does not 'deserve' four more years. He hasn't been very good to be honest. Not that Romney is any better. Americans are voting for the least bad, not the best.
He might have done better if Republicans in Congress hadn't been so eager to throw the country under the bus. Bipartisanship is dead.
That. In Europe, there is a general consensus that president Obama hasn't been given a fair chance by the Republicans. These are seen as a bunch of raving extremists that would rather let their country go to hell than do anything constructive in order to make it work.
Also, as Linda stated, the American voters can only choose between (from a European P.O.V.) a center-right and a far-right party. There's nothing like a real left party in the United States. And the influence of those super-PACS is not exactly helping the democratic process either, imho.
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