What a waste. That money can really be better spent on almost anything else. Citizen United really messed everything up
Politics
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Why can't we do like the UK does?
- You can only campaign for a certain period of time (like, a month or two iirc)
- You have a hard limit of what you can spend on said campaign
- TV stations must give equal TV time to both parties, and parties can't start campaigning until a certain period after the election is announced.
- EDIT: and they use ranked choice voting.
(I'm in the US so I'm pulling a lot of this from memory, please correct me if I'm wrong)
Yeah, people may still vote for an idiot. But it's an idiot they voted for, and not one that was bought for some company for tax breaks.
I mean, I know why our elections don't work like that. Current politicians like the system that keeps them in office. It's also very difficult to change the process.
I strongly believe that until we fix the election process, everything we do is treating symptoms rather than the problem. In addition to the mentioned rules, I would add: Term limits, ending gerrymandering, banning stock ownership for politicians, and removing the electoral college.
How can we expect non-corrupt representatives, when the current system begs for money and has so many loopholes to profit from office?
The UK isn't even the best example of this. Denmark. Does it better. Campaign posters have to follow a specific format, can only be posted in specific places, and all candidates are publicly funded. Elections are cheap, quick, and (relatively) honest. Plus it's much harder to become a celebrity politician, or an extremely rich one.
Thanks for the info. I had a vague idea of UK elections, but didn't realize the specifics of other countries.
Hopefully it taps out their resources.
Unfortunately their donors have deep pockets. Many of whom support both parties..
As the costs to run/win go up, the expected return is greater.