The U.S. election process has always struck me as a bit odd. Not sure if I can entirely explain what's specifically wrong with it, but there are a few symptoms:

• A U.S. Presidential election lasts about 2 years (18 months of non stop campaigning by the candidates) for a term that only lasts 4 years.
• An unpopular second-term President is considered a lame duck, and not much work gets done for 2 years.
• The job "President" has very little responsibility, but is for some reason worth spending hundreds of millions of dollars on getting.
• A successful politician (a U.S. Senator, say) is always fundraising. Every week, every month, every year he is in office, he's also trying to raise money for the next campaign. If some of those Senators spent as much time focusing on passing good laws as they did on fundraising, the U.S. would be much better off.
• The national job of President is fought "state by state". And candidates routinely drop out of the race if they don't do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, of all places.

So why is this so messed up? That's harder to pinpoint.

I think the design of Presidential elections - the delegate process - is partly to blame. Let me ask you this - what would happen if you gave the candidates 60 days to campaign and that's it. And at the end of 60 days, you held one giant national primary to elect the party representitive? The person with the most votes represents the party at the Presidential election.

Hey, you can even give people second and third choices so that votes for unelected candidates get shifted to a more viable candidate instead of getting wasted. That would be more democratic than this one primary per week nonsense.

And hey, while we`re at it, 60 days after the nation primary, you hold the national election. Again, most votes determines the winner.

Well, two things would happen. For one, every person in the country involved in party politics would have a say in the candidate chosen. As it is now, the early states tend to pick the one or two choices for the rest. And the second thing is it would take a LOT less money to be a Presidential candidate. As it is, Clinton has already spent $40 million on her campaign, Obama $45 million, Romney $53 million, Giuliani $30 million, McCain $28 million... And how many states primaries have been held? 7. Yes, out of 50 states, 7 primaries are over and $200 million has already been spent!

The other thing to consider, is how little say people really do have in electing the President. One of the startling things to me was the Gore-Bush election in 2000. Bush beat Gore by winning Florida - we all know that. But the vote counting came down to one or two precincts in Florida a few hundred disputed votes. Hanging chads. What to do about votes who had only indented the voting card but not punch a hole into it? And that decided the election. A few hundred votes in 1 or 2 specific places in Florida. Why weren't votes in other states challenged and recounted? Because even a 100,000 vote difference in California doesn't matter, but a 100 vote difference in Florida does!

That was a close election. But there needs to be a better way to count these things such that recounts don't dramatically change the outcome. One vote per person.