A Cursory Comparison of the U.S. and French Elections RE: Top Ten. -Robert Milnes at The PLAS Place.

The recent French elections caught my attention. It was an opportunity for me to take a closer look than usual for me.
First thing I noticed-11 parties! On all ballots I assume. In US there are several parties, but only 2 get reliably on all or most ballots; the democrats and republicans. Only 2 others get reliably on enough ballots to possibly win, the Green and Libertarian parties. Then there are 2 that unreliably get on possibly enough ballots to win, the Constitution and Reform parties. There are other parties that are split e.g. socialist or sporatic on ballots e.g. communist, national socialist etc.
The French polling was in the single or low double digits for their parties. In US, the democrats and republicans poll in the upper 40% while others poll single digits or very low double digits. As the election cycle proceeds these pollings for third parties and Independents reliably get lower and lower. A notable exception was Ross Perot, Independent in 1992.
While in the French elections, the winner polls around 20%, as does the runner up. then there is a runoff of the top two.
There is no provision for a runoff in US presidential elections. A runoff in the US could be called a Top Two and would be possibly unconstitutional.
The French elections could be thought of as comparable to my proposed Top Ten, except for the runoff. There are several examples of a non majority i.e. plurality winner in US elections. The French elections require a majority winner. At first count or at runoff.
It turns out the 2 finalists for runoff are Emmanuel Macron, center left party 24% roughly equivalent to Hillary Clinton. And Marine Le Pen, rightist nationalist party 21%, roughly equivalent to Donald Trump.
Preliminary predictions are that Macron like Clinton will win. However the 3% difference in polling is well within the capability of Russia to influence.
I have called for a Top Ten do-over of the U.S. 2016 elections. IMO a Top Ten election with no runoff would be the most fair and representative election humanly possible.

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