I would like to talk about runoff voting. I will try to keep this short.

The primary problem with our election system, as I see it, is that most people are not informed enough to make good choices on who to elect. Most people don't know all of the issues, they don't know the arguments for and against each side, in cases where they do know the arguments on each side, they don't know enough about politics to make a good decision.

Because of this, elections are won and lost for incredibly pointless reasons. Candidates have lost because they look funny in military helmets, because they got excited and screamed during a speech, or because they have "shifty eyes". In the most recent presidential election, the most common reason for voting for Bush was because Kerry "can't make up his mind", and the most common reason for voting for Kerry is because Bush "is a war monger." Neither of those things were even true, yet they decided the election.

Because the public is uninformed, the person who wins the election is not the best candidate, it is the person with the best television ads and the best media coverage, not the person who will take America in the right direction. Anyone who can't get media coverage and can't afford television ads will never even stand a chance.

Instant runoff voting will help a little. It will help some candidates who previously were not considered get a little attention. But it doesn't address the root of the problem: elections will still be decided for stupid reasons.

The best solution to this problem, in my opinion, was created by the founders: the electoral college. The authors of the Constitution understood that the average person is uninformed about politics. But hopefully the average person realizes this. And maybe the average person can say, "I don't know much about politics, but I know somebody who does." So instead of voting directly for the president, people vote for a set of smart, politically informed people. These smart, politically-informed people then choose the president. These people won't choose the president based on television ads or "shifty eyes", they'll choose the president based on his real qualifications and stances on the issues.

This system would have worked. It really would have, if the states hadn't decided to elect the college in the worst fashion imaginable. Most states elect their electoral college by voting for a party on the day of the election. Whichever party gets the most votes gets to choose all of the members of the electoral college, who immediately cast their votes for that party. This completely defeats the purpose of the college. These college members aren't giving any thought to which candidate is best; they decided who they're voting for before the candidates were even announced.

This needs to be changed. The electoral college should elected individually, and it should happen at least a month before the election. Presidential candidates should do their campaigning primarily to the electoral college, not to the average person. This would result in far better presidents being elected.

The Constitution also wrote that Senators were to be elected by the House of Representatives, not by the people. It is similar reasoning: the average person might not know enough to elect a senator, but someone in the house of representatives should be much more informed. This is how the Senate was originally elected, until an amendment changed this. It should not have changed.

The idea behind this election process is to prevent direct democracy, to put a layer between the people and the elected officials. Some people may find this to be "undemocratic" or "unamerican", but remember that the changes I am suggesting would move us back to the way that the authors of the Constitution originally created this nation. It's difficult to get more American than that.