Reforming American elections: The problem and a proposal

What is wrong with the way America runs elections? Lots of things, but the two main ones are that it is infested with party interference and it is extremely decentralised writes Peter Brent. Peter Brent reviews the The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System is Failing and How to Fix It in the Australian Review of Public Affairs.  The causes and effects are many. There is no one law stipulating who can vote and how at national elections; this is left to the states, and then each of the some 13,000 local governments (counties) runs its own portion of national polls. No firewalls exist between the executive and election officials; indeed they are often one and the same. >>LINK TO THE FULL ARTICLE ON ARP