A minor solution to America's election process

[Pat Mustard]

George Washington warned against developing party systems in his farewell address,

What was a party system in 1800 was much different than today's system. Back then the only real party system around was the English Tory*/Whig system, were both groups were much less a coming together of politicians with similar ideologies and goals and more a case of supporting one side then the other in the hopes of winning ever more lucrative bribes off the then Chancellor (the then name for the office of what is now the Prime Minister). That's what Washington was warning against, a systemised selling of offices, peculation and bribery that was current in the UK parliament which the US one was largely modelled on. The modern party system didn't happen until Charles Stewart Parnell invented the whip system to ensure a solid block of votes on every issue from the Nationalist Party in Westminster as a tactic to get support for the various Home Rule Bills from whichever of the Tories or Liberals were in power at that time.

*In fact the name Tory comes from their reputation, being a direct anglicisation of the Irish word "tóraidhe", which was the Middle Irish name for brigand (most commonly applied to highway robbers, similar to the the post Civil War Confederate bushwhackers or Dick Turpin in England)