Is there any chance of decent electoral reform in the United States?
It's probably at least a partial lack of understanding on my part, but I stare in bewilderment about aspects of how their democracy works.
As an example the electoral system seems designed on purpose to entrench a 2 party system. This seems like a sub-par democracy and can only have poor outcomes in the longer term. I'm assuming that getting this changed would require the support of at least one of the 2 major parties, who I imagine are pretty comfortable with the current system that ensures their continuing stranglehold on power.
This issue could be lessened by for example:
a) utilizing a preferential voting system, where people can vote for a 3rd party or independant, but still preference the red/blue candidate of their choice, thereby not "wasting" their vote. This provides a path for good minor parties to build a following over successive elections.
b) changing the electoral districts so you're voting multiple candidates in from one pool. Imagine for example that in California instead of having 53 separate districts each electing their blue or red member, there was a huge pool of candidates and the top 53 from that pool became congressmen. That would provide a path for decent minor party or independant candidates to get in, providing wider variety of voices. It does have drawbacks though as for example it would reduce local representation in various areas. But are local areas really represented properly by the blue/red team? I suspect not that well.
It's also pretty odd to me that federal elections in the US are managed separately by each state instead of by a central federal agency.
The short answer is no, its not going to change.
The long answer is its complex. "Most" of the electoral process will not change because it is laid out in the Constitution. To change our Constitution is exceedingly difficult and it was designed that way. You say "their democracy" so I assume you aren't American which means explaining things would be beyond the scope of a post. So tldr:
We are a Republic, originally envisioned as 13 separate Sovereign States who came together in a Federal system for things like having a unified voice for foreign affairs, a single currency, and a set of basic inalienable human rights that cross all state borders.
Because the Founders understood that some states by their virtue of being more rural and agrarian would never have high populations so the electoral college was designed to make sure that each state was fairly represented in the Federal Government. The majority of changes to the Electoral college require a Constitutional amendment.
Your suggestions sound like they are based on the Westminster parliamentary system. California is always trying to be more Euro and is probably the furthest from how our Founders designed the voting system. Of note, each State determines rules for non-Federal elections. The electoral college is only used for Presidential elections every four years. The states also redraw our Congressional House Districts every ten years based on a National census. The Constitution lays down rules for the Congressional structure.
In essence, we are a two-party system and the two parties like to keep it that way. The only serious challenge to that was under Ross Perot in the 90's. My guess is that Trump, should he opt to, might be able to forge a nationalist type party with enough influence to take seats in the Congress. This would begin to fundamentally challange our two-party system and would take many years to achieve real scale.
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