Americans are in a unique position when it comes to elections, we vote for positions you’d typically find elected in many countries (President, Senators, House, ect) and some at the city level (Mayor, city council) but there’s also a large amount of elected positions in the US that would be appointed other places. In the US, depending on your locality, you could be voting for state Supreme Court judge, family court judge, coroner, register of deeds, ect. There’s also special districts, this can include voting on sewage commissioners, fire commissioner, public pool commissioners and the county fair board.
Why did it come like this? Why do we elect so many random positions, do you think this is a good thing or do you see it as a bad thing?
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Its seen as a way to fight cronyism. How successful it is, is certainly up for debate.
I like that it is a way for people to get involved in local government. I have actively campaigned for a neighbor for school board and another for county commissioner. They are both just regular people who felt a desire to serve the community. To me, that’s what democracy should be.
>Why did it come like this?
Why not? Electing people gives more power to the people in contrast to any one person more power.
>Why do we elect so many random positions, do you think this is a good thing or do you see it as a bad thing?
These are not random positions, they are positions that do very important things. I would not call a Supreme Court Judge someone random at all. Each elected position has a specific role and duty; if they are not fulfilling those roles then they can be removed in the next election.
We’ve been descending further and further into democracy ever since the country was founded. That has some good and some bad side effects. Civic engagement in government is a good thing only so long as it doesn’t lead to populism and paralysis of government due to competing mobs.
I think it’s a good thing.
What’s wrong with democracy?
It’s impossible to have an informed opinion about all of these piddly little offices, and it makes ballots insanely long. I’d rather they be appointed.
Good when there are term limits and probably age requirements. The fkn fossils who run out country is really sad. The fact that they are as rich as they are…it’s blatant corruption. I love how our country doesn’t rank high on the corruptions scale when it seems at least at the Congressional level… corrupt AF.
We vote for class presidents in grade and hugh school. It’s in our blood.
I think it’s good to have democratic choice, not just in politics but in other aspects of life such as the workplace.
I’ll be honest though, I see a lot of random ass races on the back of my ballot that i end up skipping over because i have no idea who the people are or what it’s for.
I don’t like it. I do not think the coroner or sheriff or other jobs like that should be elected. There should be nothing political about a sheriff’s job.
In theory I think it’s a decent idea. In practice it’s very difficult to know anything about the candidates for some of these smaller offices. I feel obligated to vote in every election (maybe I shouldn’t, but I do) so I spend a long time trying to find out *anything at all* about the candidates for those lower-level offices. I once told a friend who was thinking about running for one of those offices that if he just had even the smallest internet presence, like a website stating his positions on the issues related to the office, he would likely win.
I think some of it is great and some of it just leads to being unable to make informed decisions. I agree with the theory that it makes for a more diverse government, but the set up often makes it completely nonsensical. I went to college in MN where they vote for judges and also won’t allow them to campaign. So in order to make an informed choice, you have to look through their whole case history. Same with many local positions, nobody can tell you what they want to do so you basically have to either know them personally, go to a bunch of meetings, or just make a random guess. It’s a ton of work and pretty much sets voters up to only be able to make uninformed decisions. I’d much rather leave it to appointment, at least if they also can’t campaign.
In my home city, we have so many elections that we have to host a like 5 hour long dinner party each election and go over the ballot together. Everyone has to come having done research and it still takes so much time to vote. The positions like insurance commissioner are not things I feel qualified to make a good decision on so it just takes forever and I never feel confident in my choice. If I have to leave it blank because of a lack of information, I’d rather let someone I elect who is actually qualified make that decision.
I think its a good concept, but the implementation is often imperfect. However, I still think it’s way better than having more appointed positions (and thus more opportunity to pull strings)
As many positions as possible should be elected. The Court of appeals used to be elected, now it is appointed by the Legislature and Governor. Worst thing we ever did.
Because we’re a representative democracy?
True, most of the positions you list no one really cares about (and in fact some of them are appointed by the governor or city mayor where I live). But having them be elected positions means they are ultimately beholden to the citizens. Most people won’t even hear about these positions. But if they royally screw up in any way, then the citizenry has the power to remove them.
I’m generally a fan of it, although I do think it’s questionable with some positions where I feel like being popular is less important than knowing what the hell you’re doing these days.
I can understand why sheriff or judge might have been an elected position even 80 years ago, but I’m generally not as comfortable with it these days because really, I expect experts for those positions, not just someone popular and good at schmoozing and community buy-in which is all that an election is really capable of measuring.
Counterpoint.
It is jurisdiction dependent.
A couple of examples are County Sheriff and City Administrator.
In some jurisdictions they are appointed, while in others, they are elected.
This how a Democratic Republic works. Why would it be any other way?