At least in the US and Canada - a big part is because we don't have fair elections.

In the US there is extensive gerrymandering and just this year there's been a wave of anti-democratic voter restriction laws passed to try and prop up a dying party but, bigger than all of that, the lack of some alternative to FPTP[1] has forced extremism in the populace. Even in Canada with a parliamentary system that eschews direct elections of the head of state[2] there is still rampant strategic voting and low voter satisfaction.

We can't elect competent legislators because we don't have competent elections.

1. First-pass the post, i.e. whoever gets the most votes is declared the unanimous winner.

2. Well, the real one - not Queen Elizabeth II

You can add the UK to that list, too. Again, the problem is FPTP.

Gerrymandering doesn't play a real role in Federal elections.

At least in the US Federal elections include the election of House Reps which are absolutely gerrymandered to all heck. In Canada the gerrymandering is much less insane because, honestly, we've still got shame working for us at a societal level keeping people more in line.

Yes it does, because federal elections are run by the people elected by gerrymandered states. The state legislatures are swung by gerrymandering, and then pass legislation that swings the senate and presidential election votes for their state.

> caused by voter incompetence

I laugh every time I think to myself that my vote can make a difference.

I believe democracy works because we can vote out a government we can see is working against our interest. I don’t think democracy is that important for voting in a party for its policies.

I certainly have never experienced that I can vote in a particular policy I believe in.

Occasionally I think I can vote against a party that is pushing a policy I don’t like, but often the policy comes to fruition anyway (maybe delayed until the next change of government).

And I live in a country with MMP where my vote makes more of a difference than a two party system.

You're playing American Democracy wrong.

You work through your Representative. This requires patience, diligence, and a superhuman capacity to sink disappointment.

Occasionally though, you will see verbiage from one of your letters end up in a bill. So it does work.

We should probably stop using 18th century political technology to manage 21st century problems. Eventually we'll need to move towards a participative form of democracy, a wikiocracy if you will, in which anyone can be legislator and work on any topic, substantive or trivial, but will need to overcome a certain amount of social inertia and semi-automated procedural brakes.

Right now you have an electorate mostly equipped with near-instant communication and responsive to mass information campaigns, governed by a legislature that works at a snail's pace, lacking in adequate transparency, and with no direct linkage between the popular will and the legislative process; effectively a large complex machine which voters are given a limited right to kick every 2-4 years in hopes that this will rearrange the internals enough to make it functional. Individual congresses and executive branch administrations can be good or bad to varying degrees, but the system as a whole is simply not adequate for the governance of the society and economy that has grown up around it.

Hey don’t knock. I recently found myself trapped in a bureaucratic hellscape that literally drove me to tears.

One to my Senator and it all instantly vanished.

> Legislative incompetence is caused by voter incompetence.

Do you have any evidence for that or is that a guess? Corruption seems to have far more of an effect than just blaming people for not being smarter.

Because the cost of finding out who the most competent legislators are is much higher than the benefit I get from casting my vote, which has a one in several million impact on the outcome of the election.

It's why most people vote for who is the most recognizable, or who is the tallest, or who had the most ads on TV, or who their family and friends vote for. The cost of informed voting is much higher than the benefit. It's just one example of the market failure of the political system. In other words, everyone does what's in their own self-interest, and we're all worse off as a result.

Who should I have voted for? Trump doesn't represent my moral values. Clinton kind of represents some of my political leanings, but not all of them and I dislike her for a number of her choices and because she represents a continuation of governance by a select few families. Bernie Sanders has some interesting ideas, but also some that will not work in practice as well as some I don't agree with and also I couldn't vote for him because he was off the ballot by the time my state ran primaries.

I guess I can vote in my local elections. Oh wait, the governer appears to be some kind of supervillian but everyone votes for him because of the (R) next to his name. Any more local and I can't find any information about any of them and just kind of guess what their policies are from what's written in their bios and maybe a newspaper article.

I try to be an informed citizen. Once in a while, someone who will actually make a substantial change locally makes it on the ballot. They always lose because this state votes republican no matter what.

I write emails to my governer and congress people once in a while. I always get a form letter back about how whatever the highest ranking republican wants is obviously the best course of action. I keep writing anyway so I can at least say I tried.

I don't have the time or the money or the influence to do anything but fill in the circles that don't make me nauseous.

I don't think voting is a very good idea. I live my ideals by not voting for anyone.

Voting makes sense if you're trying to decide where to eat dinner in a group of five. It doesn't make sense to pick leaders to represent you in incomprehensibly complicated sets of unknown decisions.

Using the last election as an example, take Trump and Biden, and just consider one single choice, like their respective positions on the Iran nuclear deal. If I wanted to make an intelligent choice between Trump and Biden on this issue it seems like I'd have to know what they were likely to do regarding the Iran nuclear deal, and I don't trust either of them to tell me. I'd have to actually know what a good solution to the Iran nuclear deal is - but that seems like a question for intelligence analysts and geopolitical strategists to discuss likely implications of various choices. I'd have to weigh the morality of sanctions that hurt Iranian citizens versus the increased risk of regional or global nuclear war - which seems almost impossible to do. I'd have to be able to put the importance of the Iran nuclear deal into context against the broader set of foreign and domestic issues facing the would be President known and unknown to come up with something like "I like Trump's position on Iran but Biden has a better position on X, Y, and Z, and together those things are more important..."

It doesn't strike me as believable that most or even more than a negligible amount of voters are making informed choices like that. I think mostly people just vote the way their friends and family do, or vote for the person they like better, or vote based on the political and rhetorical games, or for the taller person, etc.

> Why can't the electorate elect competent legislators?

I don't believe this is a realistic goal. It is an idealistic goal, that we should strive for but will never actually happen.

Because more than likely, there is no competent legislators on the ballet. The only solution is "voters" need to take a more direct role in politics if they care.