Disaffected

Some relevant comments from the Reddit thread:

Its shit like this that creates such a low voter turnout. Voting does have an impact, look at the Pirate Party in Germany. 9% voters that vote in a block against something or for something can have a massive effect. Even in a two party system. Look how close Obama and McCain were.

---We have vastly different voting systems. Germany has a proportional system for representatives. So 9% of the vote equals about 9% of the seats in the house. While in the United States we have Plurality voting. This means that on the local scale a voting electorate must vote in a majority for a candidate to get representation. So if there was a even 9% vote for the pirate party in the US then no seats in the house will be for the pirate party. In addition votes toward a third party such as pirate party will must likely be from people who would have voted for the democratic party. Thus increasing the likelihood for the republicans to gain a majority.

Senators and the President were supposed to be insulated from popular politics. That's why Senators were originally selected by state legislatures (that and because they were supposed to represent the interests of states as such). And, to answer a very common Reddit question, this was why we had the electoral college. The electors were envisioned to be independent statesmen who would use their judgment to select the man the country needed, not the man everyone wanted. But, of course, the expectation formed very quickly that electors would cast their vote according to the poll results in the state they represented.