Abstract
Americans, even those familiar with the details of the electoral process, remain convinced that American democracy represents the ideal towards which others should strive. ‘Far from the perfect democracy’ examines some of the flaws in the system which sees such low levels of participation, the unsatisfactory nomination process and election campaigns, as well as the huge costs and lack of competition in the process. Whilst these flaws have been pointed out by many reformers, solutions are not necessarily easy to come by without creating new problems, and few politicians relish the challenge of putting aside their own political interests to address these issues.
