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A comment on I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views. Parent comment

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by vacri on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @07:19PM (#10748531)
> Can you explain in what sense American government is not representative?

While 'Winner Takes All' is one way to do representative voting and checking that item off the list, it's one of the worst ways to be representative. CGP Grey has a series of videos on different voting systems and their pros and cons on youtube - start with this one, which goes through the ways 'winner takes all' drives towards worse representation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Another issue that Grey doesn't mention is that electioneering in the US is so constant and expensive, that politicians can rarely afford to speak in-depth to people without money to donate. It's a subtle effect and not really corruption, but a result of having to endlessly chase the dollars in order to electioneer.

The US has a representative system, no-one's arguing against that. But is it satisfactory or unsatisfactory?

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Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by Amezarak on Thursday December 17, 2015 @05:44AM (#10750675)
> While 'Winner Takes All' is one way to do representative voting and checking that item off the list, it's one of the worst ways to be representative.

State and local elections are often not winner takes all, but two-round voting. (Really, more than that, if you want to cheat and count the primary election and possible run-offs there.)

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