Timelies all!

Gary's the one I have the most inside jokes with, by a large margin.(We jokingly talk about our "shared brain")

Eliminating the electoral college would only change who feels like voting is pointless. Probably to "everyone west of the Mississippi."

Yup. And selfishly, I have no desire to see NYC become the new Ohio in terms of being battered to death with campaign ads, so I'm all in favor of the current system.

Every rural/farming state would go nuts. Isn't that why they went with the Electoral College, to keep the cities and industrial states from ruling?

Eliminating the electoral college would only change who feels like voting is pointless. Probably to "everyone west of the Mississippi."

I'm in favour of some system that at least partitions voters, though I'd prefer it evenly weighted (and with boundaries drawn by a nonpartisan commission, but that's another matter). Imagine the recount furore following the 2000 election, but with the whole country in play instead of just one state.

You guys really should give preferential voting a try. However, going on the Australian experience, I'm not sure that it would challenge the two-party system. We have a handful of independents in the House at the moment, and this is something of a high point, historically. America's bigger though, so maybe you'd get the odd regional bunch that managed some success.

We do get third parties and independents turn up regularly in the Senate, where they frequently hold the balance of power; but that's because Senate elections use proportional voting (each state elects six Senators at a time).

Coalition government could be fun. It'd be amusing watching everyone jockey to get support from small parties to get things done. "We don't have the votes, we need to get those damned Green Partiers on our side!" "But they want to cut back greenhouse gasses and admit to climate change!" "I know! But do you want a raise this year?"

If I learned anything from the Buffista Bureaucrazy Voting Discussions, it would be that Americans Are Not Ready for Preferential Voting.

I'm going to see "Book of Mormon" tonight and I am VERY EXCITED! We almost always get theatre seats on sale and sit in the last few rows of the highest blacony. This time, we got house seats, so we'll be right up front. Woo Hoo!

I would like to:

• abolish the Senate.
• abolish the office of Vice President.
• abolish the limit on the number of Representatives.
• Presidential election by popular vote.

Proportional representation all the fucking way.

I say things to my students such "You're all doing verry well", like Mr. Grace from Are You Being Served, and they just totally don't get it.

Hahahaha, I do this too. (Occasionally one of my UK coworkers will actually laugh. Younger Americans, nuh-uh.)

Ha! Mine is, "I'm free!" when someone asks me if I gave a minute out if I'm, you know, free.

Also, my inside joke person is mostly Debetesse. Joe is a very close second.