"So, this is a great example of the system failing us."
I think you have that backwards, it is an example of us failing the system. From Amanda's comment: "Today I called a Senator’s office for the first time."
What that says for the first time Amanda is engaged in the question of who best represents her views with respect to how we are governed. This is a great news. As other folks have pointed out this guy has been in office since 1975.
So many US citizens walk into a voting booth with a sort of half-baked, maybe completely unbaked, idea about what they are doing there. Worse, anywhere from 20 to 85 percent of the people who registered to vote don't even bother walking in and voting!
The people who walk in with no prep at all are the most malleable by advertising of the "me good! him bad!" type. They form a sort of Gaussian foam distribution of votes where the investment in advertisements can push the median slightly over to one candidate resulting in elections which are won with 1 - 5% of the votes cast.
The "system" that was set up was designed for people to actually invest time and effort into identifying the best candidate out of the available choices, and if unhappy with those choices providing a new candidate the next time which was a better choice. But when people don't vote or vote randomly, they fail that system.
You can proactively improve the system with a simple algorithm,
1) Vote - this is required since the system only responds to votes cast, not blog postings or public outrage.
2) If you like the way this office is working, vote the incumbent, if you don't vote anyone else.
As the algorithm takes effect, the only successful response of the system is to act in a way such that the voters 'vote incumbent'. The amazing power of this algorithm was demonstrated in Russian elections where the media suggests it took large, overt, and fraudulent activities to overcome all of the votes for someone other than Putin. Had those people just 'not voted' it would have not had the effect it had.
So if you want better politicians, vote. If you want to magnify your impact, get as many friends as you can to vote. If you don't have time to research candidates and talk to them to converge quickly on a solution, then use the above algorithm to evolve better representation.
I very much agree that participating in the system is essential. I vote early and often, as the saying goes, and bug friends about issues.
In some sense, yeah, we've failed the system. Then again, the address to that is really uncomfortable: the system was designed to deal with people who actually were (nominally) fit to govern themselves. I would posit the (loathsome) idea that most of the population functions mainly to consume services and act selfishly. They have no great intellect, ambition, desire, or goal beyond feeling good and being happy. There is nothing "wrong" with this, but that's the way it is--consider the evolution of the computers and programming away from terminal-driven computation devices to slick advertising delivery systems. There is a lot to unpack, but it isn't productive to do that here.
As for your algorithm, it's crap. Here's why.
First, the system technically functions based solely on votes, but these votes can be changed by gerrymandering, hacking voting machines, rigging elections, etc. Don't pretend like your vote is some assured method of sending an impulse (however small) to the system. Note also that once candidates are in office, the system responds to their whims, and in turn many whims can be affected by extortion, blackmail, bribery, corruption, or whatever else.
Second, you assert that you still vote when the incumbent isn't working out--you just vote against them. This is wrong, because the information you want to convey--"The candidate in office is not one I want"--is now altered to something else--"I want this particular candidate in office". You've given away the ability to say "None of these candidates are worth a damn, give us new ones".
Any system that will seriously allow the election of dead men into office in preference to a living being, no matter who despicable, is failed.
The system is very much failing us. That said, it's near impossible to fix it--there is a lot of inertia, and we can't exactly bring it down for three months for a refactor, now can we?
Oh, you can certainly bring it down for a refactor. Just grab your guns, as long as our previous laziness has not allowed those in power to take them away.
Am I advocating the violent overthrow of the US Government? Nnnnnnope, just stating a point.
Ok, let me share my reasoning and assumptions which might make my position clearer.
"First, the system technically functions based solely on votes, but these votes can be changed by gerrymandering, hacking voting machines, rigging elections, etc. Don't pretend like your vote is some assured method of sending an impulse (however small) to the system. Note also that once candidates are in office, the system responds to their whims, and in turn many whims can be affected by extortion, blackmail, bribery, corruption, or whatever else."
So let us separate out the difference between 'vote fraud' (aka the illegal manipulation of the vote) and voting legal voting changes (districts, rank-choice, open primary, etc etc).
While there are notable cases of voting fraud (the most famous perhaps being the Chicago elections) there is no evidence that such systems persist today. Conspiracy theories aside, I assume that most voting is legit in the US.
Now that leaves manipulation of the voting pool through either redistricting or voter polls manipulation (preventing undesirable voters from signing up or signing up more desirable voters). In a contest where voter turnout is < 60% and the winning margin is < 5%, getting half the people who don't vote at all to come in and vote intelligently (which is to say responsibly) will cause the correct outcome to occur.
To your second point:
"Second, you assert that you still vote when the incumbent isn't working out--you just vote against them. This is wrong, because the information you want to convey--'The candidate in office is not one I want'--is now altered to something else--'I want this particular candidate in office'. You've given away the ability to say 'None of these candidates are worth a damn, give us new ones'."
The effect of eliminating the current incumbent is achieved. One of the ways people demonstrate that evolution works, rather than just a 'theory' as ID folks would suggest, is by creating a population where births and deaths are controlled by a simple fitness function, the simplest possible examples evolves to support the fitness function in a remarkably small number of generations. In our case 'death' is 'not re-elected' and birth is 'elected.' Without any other influence we can show mathematically that because candidates want to be elected the fitness function will drive them to doing what this population of voters considers a 'good job' and away from what they consider a 'bad job'.
Now you and I may not agree with a district's definition of what that is, but the system will insure that the district gets what they want.
I think you have that backwards, it is an example of us failing the system. From Amanda's comment: "Today I called a Senator’s office for the first time."
What that says for the first time Amanda is engaged in the question of who best represents her views with respect to how we are governed. This is a great news. As other folks have pointed out this guy has been in office since 1975.
So many US citizens walk into a voting booth with a sort of half-baked, maybe completely unbaked, idea about what they are doing there. Worse, anywhere from 20 to 85 percent of the people who registered to vote don't even bother walking in and voting!
The people who walk in with no prep at all are the most malleable by advertising of the "me good! him bad!" type. They form a sort of Gaussian foam distribution of votes where the investment in advertisements can push the median slightly over to one candidate resulting in elections which are won with 1 - 5% of the votes cast.
The "system" that was set up was designed for people to actually invest time and effort into identifying the best candidate out of the available choices, and if unhappy with those choices providing a new candidate the next time which was a better choice. But when people don't vote or vote randomly, they fail that system.
You can proactively improve the system with a simple algorithm,
1) Vote - this is required since the system only responds to votes cast, not blog postings or public outrage.
2) If you like the way this office is working, vote the incumbent, if you don't vote anyone else.
As the algorithm takes effect, the only successful response of the system is to act in a way such that the voters 'vote incumbent'. The amazing power of this algorithm was demonstrated in Russian elections where the media suggests it took large, overt, and fraudulent activities to overcome all of the votes for someone other than Putin. Had those people just 'not voted' it would have not had the effect it had.
So if you want better politicians, vote. If you want to magnify your impact, get as many friends as you can to vote. If you don't have time to research candidates and talk to them to converge quickly on a solution, then use the above algorithm to evolve better representation.
The common theme though is this participate.