America’s Institutions are Broken — Including our Election System.

The vast number of “undervotes” and other irregularities are not new. But they are particularly American.

America likes to think of itself as an exceptional country, a unique political experiment, different from all the rest. For some, this is a good thing; the US stands apart but on high, that “shining city on a hill”.

For others, however, it is a land of exceptional inequality, violence, corruption and greed. And, for the past 4 years, an increasing number of Americans also see their country as being unique — at least in the developed world — for its lack of faith in its government, its broken and faithless institutions, its bumbling Administration and its ocean of competing conspiracy theories struggling to explain all the dysfunction on display.

The recent Presidential election has brought all of these issues to the fore.

Why can’t we have an honest election?

The US is exceptional in many ways when it comes to elections. First, we are the only industrialized country that disenfranchises so many of its citizens, denying them the right to vote. Second, of those that are allowed to vote, the US has the lowest rate of voter participation of any “first world” country.

The US is also unique in how we vote. Unlike most of the so-called “western democracies,” the US relies almost…