>I see the vote as: "less than 30% were willing to make the effort to vote for each one of the 2 main candidates", which is very close to a breakdown in german history - just from numbers alone. The trend since WWII sees declining voter turnout across all western countries. I think more checks and balances should be added (armchair general me ponders a maximum term length of 8 years as is now, but perhaps a term shortening if not a certain % of ELIGIBLE vote is reached, balanced by allowing more than 2 terms if some are shortened...).
>
>I think that they should require all eligible voters to vote by making it against the law not to vote :)

Within 8 years of such a law I expect a real cartoon candidate like the Donald from the Duck lineage to get a couple of thousand votes ;-)