THIS is why the world laughs at us (or thinks we're batshit crazy)

[Moostache]

20. Proportional voting based on an examination of issue awareness would solve this.

Public financing of elections ONLY....ZERO PRIVATE CAMPAIGN DONATIONS OR SPENDING - under pain of death. It would become a capital offense to interfere with elections or to run campaign ads with gravel-voiced actors intoning about "too dangerous", "too extreme" or "too liberal/conservative". Anyone caught spending money to influence political campaigns would be summarily sent to Gitmo because they are a bigger existential threat to the United States than the current forced residents of that place which our current president promised to close 6 years ago...once we fill up Cuba (in about 10 minutes) we will use the federal lands in Montana and North Dakota to build large rectangular prison camps to house these people.

Mandatory voting. If you do not vote, you will be subject to fines and / or mandatory community service of 4 hours at the least convenient time possible. Voting would be the same as jury duty, failure to answer a summons or cast a ballot would be seen as contempt of court and subject to fine or imprisonment.

ALL ballots to be sent out on October 1st to every registered social security number in the nation of eligible voting status (ie. of age, non-felon, legal voters) and are due no later than Election Day. IF you did not return your regular ballot by mail, or online or call-in voting...then you MUST appear in voting court on Election Day. At voting court - which will take at least 8 hours of your life as penalty for not being more in touch with your civic responsibilities - you will be required to fill out a ballot or just check the box on the top of the ballot that says "I am too fucking stupid to be a participant in governing this country, state, or municipality; please discard my vote".

THEN...after the ballots are cast, a mandatory issues awareness test will be issued annually that determines just how much your vote will count.. It will include basic questions and non-partisan facts like:
How many Senators are in the United States Senate?
How many Representatives do YOU have in the United States Congress?
How many Senators?
How many states are in the United States of America?
Who is the current president and vice-president?
Who is the current Speaker of the House?
Who is the current Senate Majority Leader?

The list would be 10 questions in all, and your vote would count only in proportion to the number of correct answers you are able to produce (or care to actually answer...failure to submit a voter evaluation would mean forfeiture of the franchise for that election and your ballot being removed from the count...if you're too goddamn dumb to know these basic facts about the government - or so disengaged that you can't be bothered to look them up, then you are too stupid to be counted as an active citizen participant in government and you need to be purged from the electorate.

The experiment of the United States, of representative republic governance was established with the INTENT of an active, informed citizenry - engaged enough to know the issues and representatives of said government. It was not set up to be a fear-based, Pavlovian response-controlled popularity contest - driven by money and advertising and apathy to only allow the most well financed and backed candidates of the corporate culture's choosing to "serve" in the government.

After all of the dipshits, mouth breathers, and functionally illiterate idiots in America fail, the final ballot count may only be 1 or 2 million full credit votes....but it would be a far better way to elect leaders who do anything other than campaign, name-call and hand back benefits to campaign donors.