CL wrote:
> Declan Murphy wrote:
>> Are all US Senate (and other?) races based on the British "first past
>> the post" system? What a shame if that is the case.
> 

> They didn't all used to be, but the other systems were so corrupt that 
> states were pretty much forced into it by about 1934.  Some states had 
> the legislature select the Senator and others were gubernatorial 
> appointees ... along with a couple of other systems I vaguely remember 
> hearing about.  A couple of states have toyed with requiring over half 
> the votes cast or over half the registered number of voters registered, 
> but runoffs have proved too costly.

Direct election of US senators became nation-wide in 1913 with the
17th amendment. Before then it varied, with many states having their
legislature selecting the senators. The framers of the Australian
constitution considered the (then) US-style indirect election (still
used in Germany, etc.) in the 1890s, but went for direct election.

-- 
Jim Breen        http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学