Do you vote? :-P

[Blackbird]

I usually don't, because the elections are invariably a choice between one terrible candidate and another. Unless I can discern the lesser evil, I usually don't bother.

[Necronopticous]

[...]the elections are invariably a choice between one terrible candidate and another.

There's a reason for that.

FPTP

[Ed Oscuro]

Also, I wanted to say that most people just vote a straight partisan line, maybe making exceptions for people they "like" or whatever.

If you have some skepticism in your own understanding of the political process, you're probably considerably better qualified to vote than the majority of the partisans.

What makes people partisans? Well, it seems that in most generations, young people get comfortable with the kind of administration in power as they are coming of age (I'm not sure exactly what the age is supposed to be). So in FDR's time, lots of young people became lifelong democrats. In Reagan's administration, lots of people became Carlton, and they never recovered. The exception to this trend in modern times was the second George W Bush term, which apparently didn't win the hearts and minds of young people overall.

Oh yeah, and I agree with Necron about the FPTP thing. Actually some will go further and point out that even when you ask Americans to set up a government for somebody, we tend to choose a parliamentary system.